BOOKS ON UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FOR CHILDREN

9/20/2021

Can you imagine the degree of pain, pressure and stress the enslaved were under before making the decision to escape? To have been driven to the point of boxing yourself up and mailing yourself to escape, for example, is a sure sign of desperation. To have been driven to the point of risking life and limbs to do so suggests the most wretched of circumstances leading up to it. Reading or writing was even a punishable offense by law.

I remember when I was a preteen and first heard about the underground railroad, I thought it was a literal tunnel that was underground, This list targets young people with classic titles and those that were published 2020-2021to clear up any confusion.

What have I to fear?
My master broke every promise to me.
I lost my beloved wife and our dear children.
All, sold South. Neither my time nor my body is mine.
The breath of life is all I have to lose.
And bondage is suffocating me.

- excerpt from "Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom"

I personally enjoy reading stories about resistance to enslavement. I refuse to believe that this wicked system wasn’t met with ongoing push back. In “Narrative of my Escape From Slavery” it is hard to believe that Moses Roper survived the tortuous and grueling trip. Every step of the way was met with torture, or trauma. He described wading through swamps, sleeping in the woods, running with fifty pound irons around the neck and feet. He even drew diagrams of the torture employed when his former master found him at various times after his escape that included a horse, a whip and large corkscrew contraption. He shared that one master poured tar on his head and lit a fire to it, only to put it out just before complete devastation.

There’s no wonder why our ancestors made the decision to run away. It is why Malcolm X references the “field Negro” as contrasted with the “House Negro” who said of his environment, “any place is better than here,” in his 1963 “Message to the Grassroots” speech.

Another unique story about the underground railroad is a free Black man named Thomas Downing in the early 1800’s. He owned a restaurant that used the basement as a station on the Underground Raiload. An oyster business by day and place of refuge by night; our people were extremely creative when it came to dodging slave catchers, colonizers and many others that stood to profit financially from free labor.

Author Glennette Tilley Turner and Jerri Stinson’s research uncovered a station located in Maywood Il that was near a river, and a railroad that was used in the mid 1800’s. I wrote about it in this blog post called, “Black Tourism in Maywood, IL.” Tilley revealed in her book launch of “A Man Called Horse” that the McDonald’s property that the Underground Railroad marker is on used a Black architect to design it named Michael Rogers.
It feels like divine providence to find out that the descendants of those who suffered the most are benefiting financially over one hundred years later.

Harriet Tubman has been the most prominently known Underground Railroad conductor and the many books on this in her name list reflect this. While she is the most prominent, we know there were many more that dared to take that journey like Moses Roper, Frederick Douglass, and so many more. Perhaps you have a story like this in your family that has been handed down to you. Please consider writing about it to preserve the legacy of resistance to slavery.

Glennette Tilley Turner, author of "The Underground Railroad in Illinois" is considered by some to be the foremost authority on The Underground Railroad. She also revealed in our book launch that she's working on another book about Harriet Tubman. Tubman is most famous for her firey words:

"I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves." Harriet Tubman

Recently, there's been some fact checking that says Tubman never said these words. I look forward to Tilley Turner's meticulous research to put the online debate from "Politifact" to rest. After all, we wouldn't want this small detail to eclipse the more important fact that she freed 750 slaves after the civil war. Tubman has been in the news lately because she is being considered to replace slave holder Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill.

FINAL THOUGHTS

As always, I appreciate that you have read through this blog post. I hope that you’ve become curious to read more books about the harrowing adventures to freedom on the Underground Railroad. We ask that you consider purchasing your books from our Black owned bookstore, Afriware Books, Co. If there is a title you’d like to purchase that is not mentioned here, or could not be found on the website, feel free to email us at: [email protected]

Blog Notes

IL Underground railroad sites: https://www.enjoyillinois.com/travel-illinois/illinois-underground-railroad/
Maywood, IL Underground railroad site info is listed here: https://www.afriwarebooks.com/blog/black-tourism-in-maywood-illinois
Democracy Now interview with Kate Clifford Larson, author of "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero."