Francis Bok
Francis Piol Bol Bok (born February 1979), a Dinka tribesman and citizen of South Sudan, was a slave for ten years and later became an abolitionist and author living in the United States.
On May 15, 1986, he was captured and enslaved at the age of seven during an Arab militia raid on the village of Nyamlell in southern Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War.
[1] Bok lived in bondage for ten years before escaping imprisonment in Kurdufan, Sudan, followed by a journey to the United States by way of Cairo, Egypt.
His earliest steps towards the United States were helped by a northern Sudanese Muslim family that believed that slavery was wrong and provided him a bus ticket to Khartoum.
[4] Bok has testified before the United States Senate and met with George W. Bush, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice, telling them his story of slavery.
[5] Francis Bok was raised in a large Catholic family of cattle herders in the Dinka village of Gurion in Southern Sudan.
[13] He had to take them to pastures in the area and to local watering holes, where he saw other Dinka boys who were also forced to tend herds of livestock.
In addition to having him serve as his slave, Giemma forced Bok to convert to Islam and to take the Arabic name of Abdul Rahman, meaning 'servant of the compassionate one'.
Abdah thought that slavery was wrong and agreed to transport Bok to the town of Ed-Da'Ein in the back of his truck amongst his cargo of grain and onions.
[21] Bok settled among people who were from the Aweil area of North Bahr al Ghazal and began using his Christian name of Francis once again.
Through the help of some Dinka tribesman he was able to acquire a Sudanese passport on the black market and obtain a ticket for passage to Cairo.
While staying at Sacred Heart, Bok began to learn some English and made important contacts among the Dinka population of Cairo.
[25] He eventually moved out of the church compound and into an apartment with other Dinka who were also seeking UN refugee status in order to leave Africa for the United States, Great Britain or Australia.
[27] His journey was sponsored by Lutheran Social Services and a United Methodist Church; both worked together to provide him an apartment in Fargo and helped him find a job.
[28] It was while living in Ames that he was contacted by Charles Jacobs, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) based in Boston, Massachusetts.
[29] Jesse Sage, associate director of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and Jacobs persuaded Bok to move to Boston to work with the AASG.
[5] Bok has spoken at churches and universities throughout the United States and Canada and he has helped launch the American Anti-Slavery Group's website iAbolish.org at a Jane's Addiction concert before an audience of 40,000 on April 28, 2001.
[5] His autobiography, Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America, was published in 2003 by St. Martin's Press.
