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!

What Was the Underground Railroad?

Author: Yona Zeldis McDonough
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0448467127
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!

If You Traveled on the Underground Railroad

Author: Ellen Levine
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780590451567
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description
Answers questions about the background of the underground railroad, explains what it was like to be a slave, and describes the hardships faced by fugitive slaves.

Passages to Freedom

Author: David Blight
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780060851187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Few things have defined America as much as slavery. In the wake of emancipation the story of the Underground Railroad has become a seemingly irresistible part of American historical consciousness. This stirring drama is one Americans have needed to tell and retell and pass on to their children. But just how much of the Underground Railroad is real, how much legend and mythology, how much invention? Passages to Freedom sets out to answer this question and place it within the context of slavery, emancipation, and its aftermath. Published on the occasion of the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Passages to Freedom brings home the reality of slavery's destructiveness. This distinguished yet accessible volume offers a galvanizing look at how the brave journey out of slavery both haunts and inspires us today.

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.

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: 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

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.