I remember reading about The Underground Railroad when I was in junior high school. The Railroad was a large network of secret contacts between free Black people and white people to help escaped enslaved people reach freedom. I remember reading about Fredrick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. I remember the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, but was too young to grasp the full meaning.
According to the book by C.L. Lincoln, The Negro Pilgrimage In America, the slave trade was outlawed in 1808 but the internal slave trading and breeding was developed in Southern states. The auction block was one of the most dehumanizing aspects of slavery. Runaway slaves were common in the South. In 1793, the federal government enacted the first of two fugitive slave laws. The laws required “all good citizens” to assist Federal Marshals and their deputies in apprehending runaway slaves.
Fugitive slave laws were not helpful to Black people. They were denied a jury trial in Federal courts, their testimonies were inadmissible, and the unsupported sworn statement of a slave holding owner was the main evidence offered against a Black person accused of being a runaway slave. In the North, many white people became ardent abolitionists.
When veterans returned from the War of 1812, many Black people heard of Canada and realized that freedom lay just across from the Ohio River. Slaves learned that by following “the North Star” they could escape into free territory. Lincoln wrote, “Slaveowners were so mystified by the increase in runaways that they began to speculate that their slaves had escaped on some sort of underground railroad.”
The abolitionists demanded an end to slavery based on a higher law ordained by God and the Declaration of Independence, making it morally and legally wrong to exclude Black people from those benefits. Slaveholders rejected both Biblical and political arguments. The Declaration of Independence did not apply to enslaved people because they had no part in writing it and were considered to be three fifths of a person. Lincoln wrote, “Southerners used the Bible to prove justification of slavery by identifying Negroes as descendants of Ham, forever ordained to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.” White Southerners argued historical and economical justifications for slavery in every way imaginable.
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, published a book entitled, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. According to Lincoln, “This book was to shape pre-Civil War America’s image of the slave and his master, and it defined the issues all Americans had to face. It revealed the cruelty and horror of slavery and the human and noble qualities of a people held in bondage. Its major point was that the Negro wanted his freedom from a system founded on brutality and evil, and that he would fight and die for that freedom and the freedom of his family and friends.”
In the hot summer of 2012, my family hosted a family reunion in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Our tour bus pulled up to the small white clapboard house with a sign out front with the name Burkle Estate. It is also known as Slave Haven. Just reading the name on the sign created a wide range of emotions. After exiting the bus, our energetic docent greeted us and took us back to a painful history.
We were led to the front room and sat quietly in chairs. She began by telling us the history of the house. According to her, Burkle Estate was owned by a German immigrant in the 1800’s and had been a part of the Underground Railroad. It has been a museum since 1997. The house is located near the banks of the Mississippi River. Because of the river, Memphis was Tennessee’s largest slave trading city. The cellar of the home was used to hide escaping slaves until they could get on the river boats to take them to Northern free-states. A street named Auction Avenue was nearby. It led to Auction Square, where slaves were auctioned, in downtown Memphis. When I was a teenager, my family and I lived in a housing project within walking distance of Burkle Estate, Auction Avenue, and Auction Square. We heard about the painful history and tried to avoid the areas.
We toured the interesting historical rooms of the house before dividing in groups to go down in the cellar. The docent explained that the beautiful quilts on display represented the codes used by slaves to navigate their escape. I thought I was ready to hear this part of history but I wasn’t. My mind drifted off again and I wanted air. I escaped to the outside of the small white house and walked across the beautiful manicured lawn. I had to mentally prepare myself to go down in that cellar. I knew I had to feel part of what my ancestors endured. They didn’t turn back and neither would I. They didn’t get time off because it was hot. They didn’t give up when fighting for freedom and equal rights in a land that tried to destroy them. They had a dream and it was up to us to understand what they endured and continue to fight for that dream to become a reality.
One by one, our small group went down the narrow steps to the dark and hot cellar. Standing shoulder to shoulder, our docent pointed out the small window and continued telling the history. I thought about the long and painful pilgrimage of black people. I thought about the brave white abolitionists who risked their own lives by doing what was right. I thought about how brave and smart both groups were to develop such an elaborate network of secret contacts. Harriet Tubman was one of the bravest operators of The Underground Railroad. After escaping, she made repeated trips back South to help other enslaved people. She brandished a pistol and threatened any slave who wanted to turn back.
I thought about my childhood living in poverty in the segregated South. I grew up in the 60’s during the Civil Rights era. I thought about the brave civil rights leaders and activists of diverse races, gender, and socioeconomic status and what they endured while fighting for justice and equality in the United States of America. Some progress has been made but not enough. Laws were changed on paper but the hearts of some American’s were unchanged.
Francie Mae. March 31, 2021.
Reference
C.Eric Lincoln. November 1967. The Negro Pilgrimage In America. Bantam Pathfinder Books.