How a run honoring Parley P. Pratt's 1839 jailbreak became a Missouri community's First Amendment celebration

 (by Emily Abel ldsliving.com 7-2-21)

On July 4, 1839, Parley P. Pratt broke out of the Columbia, Missouri, jail and ran for freedom. Pratt, who was then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, had been arrested because of his participation in a battle against Missourians when Latter-day Saints were expelled from the state in 1838–39. After spending months in jail, he had a dream in which his late first wife promised he would eventually be free. Fittingly, July 4 would be the day Pratt made his escape. He successfully returned to the main body of Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, and would later lead a large wagon company across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. 

Over 180 years later, members of the local community are joining Latter-day Saints for the first time in the Columbia Missouri Stake's annual Parley P. Pratt Freedom Run. On the four-mile journey, the community plans to honor their First Amendment freedoms as they run pass historic markers in their city.

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