The Underground Railroad

Author: Colson Whitehead
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0345804325
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. • The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!

The Underground Railroad

Author: Philip Wolny
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 9780823940080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Book Description
Examines the events and key figures behind the formation and operation of the Underground Railroad, the secretive and illegal organization that helped American slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States and Canada.

The Underground Railroad

Author: Ann Malaspina
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438131291
Category : Abolitionists
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was passed by Congress, the flight to freedom for runaway slaves became even more dangerous. Even the free cities of Boston and Philadelphia were no longer safe, and abolitionists who despised slavery had to turn in fugitives. But the Underground Railroad, a secret and loosely organized network of people and safe houses that led slaves to freedom, only grew stronger. Since the late 1700s, blacks and whites had banded together to aid runaways like Maryland slave Frederick Douglass, who disguised himself as a sailor to board a train to New York. Virginia slave Henry Brown packed himself in a box to get to Philadelphia. The minister John Rankin, who hung a lantern to guide runaways to his house by the Ohio River, endured beatings for speaking against slavery. Quaker storeowner Thomas Garrett was put on trial for helping fugitives in Delaware. Meanwhile, the nation marched on toward Civil War. At its height, between 1810 and 1850, these secret routes and safe houses were used by an estimated 30,000 people escaping enslavement. In The Underground Railroad: The Journey to Freedom, read how this secret system worked in the days leading up to the Civil War and the pivotal role it played in the abolitionist movement.

The Underground Railroad

Author: Natalie Hyde
Publisher: Uncovering the Past: Analyzing
ISBN: 9780778715511
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In the 1800s, the Underground Railroad was a system of secret routes and safe places to hide for black slaves trying to escape to freedom. This astonishing book details the evidence that led up to the acceptance of slavery as well as the rejection of it. Readers will discover that when faced with evidence of the plight of slaves, such as slave auction posters, engravings, photographs, and interviews, white people had varying views depending on whether they benefited from slavery themselves. Readers will learn how prejudice and circumstances at the time of an event can influence people's interpretation of evidence and how that perspective can change over time. They will also learn how to use critical thinking in their own examinations of evidence. Present-day examples show how history repeats itself when evidence is denied or interpreted to one side's benefit. Teacher's guide available.

What Was the Underground Railroad?

Author: Yona Zeldis McDonough
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 069815973X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
No one knows where the term Underground Railroad came from--there were no trains or tracks, only "conductors" who helped escaping slaves to freedom. Including real stories about "passengers" on the "Railroad," this book chronicles slaves' close calls with bounty hunters, exhausting struggles on the road, and what they sacrificed for freedom. With 80 black-and-white illustrations throughout and a sixteen-page black-and-white photo insert, the Underground Railroad comes alive!

Harriet Tubman

Author: Ann Petry
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504019865
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Book Description
A New York Times Outstanding Book for young adult readers, this biography of the famed Underground Railroad abolitionist is a lesson in valor and justice. Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman knew the thirst for freedom. Inspired by rumors of an “underground railroad” that carried slaves to liberation, she dreamed of escaping the nightmarish existence of the Southern plantations and choosing a life of her own making. But after she finally did escape, Tubman made a decision born of profound courage and moral conviction: to go back and help those she’d left behind. As an activist on the Underground Railroad, a series of safe houses running from South to North and eventually into Canada, Tubman delivered more than three hundred souls to freedom. She became an insidious threat to the Southern establishment—and a symbol of hope to slaves everywhere. In this “well-written and moving life of the ‘Moses of her people’’’ (The Horn Book), an acclaimed author makes vivid and accessible the life of a national hero, soon to be immortalized on the twenty-dollar bill. This intimate portrait follows Tubman on her journey from bondage to freedom, from childhood to the frontlines of the abolition movement and even the Civil War. In addition to being named a New York Times Outstanding Book, Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad was also selected as an American Library Association Notable Book.

The Underground Railroad

Author: Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317454162
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 847

Book Description
Provides a look at the network known as the Underground Railroad - that mysterious "system" of individuals and organizations that helped slaves escape the American South to freedom during the years before the Civil War. This work also explores the people, places, writings, laws, and organizations that made this network possible.

The Ballad of the Underground Railroad

Author: Charles L. Blockson
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1434359859
Category : Antislavery movements
Languages : en
Pages : 26

Book Description
Over the past two decades or more, America has witnessed a healthy renewal of interest of the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad is a story of suffering, bravery, secret codes, heroic deeds, treachery and lofty ideas. It is a story about the best and the worst of human kind. Disconnected and daring escapees hoped that the North Star would guide them to stations on the burgeoning Underground Railroad; which by the early 1830's still did not have a name. The word spread from plantation to plantation, city to city, town to town; first in whispers and then out right talk, there was a railroad to freedom. Invisible though it may have been, the Underground Railroad had numerous agents, conductors and stations throughout the secret freedom network. Slave owners of course, looked upon the Underground Railroad as organized theft. Under the constitution of the United States slavery was lawful and slaves were property. Although assisting escapees along the freedom network meant breaking the law. Yet, people like Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor did so eagerly. The Underground Railroad remained active until the end of the Civil war.

The Underground Railroad

Author: William Still
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048613122X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
From a "conductor" who assisted runaway slaves in their flight to freedom, here is a collection of letters, newspaper articles, and firsthand accounts about refugees' narrow escapes and deadly struggles. Over 50 illustrations.

The Underground Rail Road

Author: William Still
Publisher: Philadelphia : Porter & Coates
ISBN:
Category : Abolitionists
Languages : en
Pages : 842

Book Description
"Historically significant document by Still, a free-born Black man who became an author and abolitionist movement leader in Philadelphia, PA. The volume document the stories of escaped slaves, and remains "the only first-person account of Black activities on the Underground Railroad written and self-published by an African-America...William Still was a major contributor to the success of the Underground Railroad activities in Philadelphia and a part of Philadelphia's free Black community that played an essential role in the Underground Railroad. He personally provide room and board for many African Americans who escaped slavery and stopped in Philadelphia on their way to Canada. Through his work with the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery's Vigilance Committee, he raised funds to assist runaways and arrange their passage to the North. He was instrumental in financing several of Harriet Tubman's trips to the South to liberate enslaved Africans" (Turner, Diane D. "William Still's National Significance." Web blog post. William Still: African American Abolitionist. Temple University, n.d. 18 August, 2016)." --description from Lorne Bair Rare Books Inc., bookseller.