UNDERGROUND RAILROAD STATION 2 AND 3

STATION 2

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was born a slave.
In 1849, in fear that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way.
The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife. Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.
She is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors."
During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom.
And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."
Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."


Frederick Douglass




Frederick A. Douglass was born in 1817 on a Maryland plantation.
Douglass constantly fought against his slave condition and was constantly in trouble with the overseer.
A master’s wife taught Douglass to read when he was 12.
He escaped on September 3, 1838.
In 1845, against the advice of his friends, Douglass decided to write an account of his life, fully aware of the possibility that this would mark him as the Bailey runaway slave.
The autobiography was called The Narrative Of The Life and Times Of Frederick Douglass.
In 1845 Douglass founded and edited the North Star newspaper.
When the Civil War broke out, Frederick Douglass urged President Lincoln to free and arm the slaves.
He was also a great spokesman for universal suffrage, women's rights, and world peace. In 1848 Douglass participated in the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York.
In 1872 he ran for vice president on the Equal Rights Party ticket.
In 1889 he was appointed minister to Haiti.
Sojourner Truth



Sojourner Truth was born around 1797 in New York. She was sold at auction numerous times.
She was treated terribly by different masters.
In 1826 she ran away and went west.
She spoke about her experiences as a slave and her eventual freedom.
Though she never learned to read or write, she became a moving speaker for black freedom and women's rights.
While many of her fellow black abolitionists (people who campaigned for the end of slavery) spoke only to blacks, Truth spoke mainly to whites. While they spoke of violent uprisings, she spoke of reason and religious understanding.
Realizing she was discriminated against on two fronts (gender and race), Truth became an outspoken supporter of women's rights.
Phillis Wheatley

Born in 1753 in Senegal, West Africa but sold into slavery at eight year old

At age thirteen years old and while still in slavery, Phillis Wheatley's poems were being circulated throughout England.

In 1770 her first poem was published in London entitled Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral.

In 1772, she was freed by her master, Mrs. S. Wheatley, and went to England.

In 1776, she wrote a poem entitled "To His Excellency General Washington." After he read it, George Washington invited her to visit him at Cambridge.

The abolitionists pointed to her skill as a poet as proof that Blacks were not inferior and should be freed.



STATION 3



(This Song Has Hidden Meanings! Try to figure them out!)

"Follow the Drinking Gourd"

When the sun comes back,
and the first Quail calls,
Follow the drinking gourd,
For the old man is waiting
for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

Chorus:
Follow the drinking gourd,
Follow the drinking gourd,
For the old man is waiting
for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

The riverbank will make a very good road,
The dead trees show you the way.
Left foot, peg foot traveling on,
Following the drinking gourd.

The river ends between two hills,
Follow the drinking gourd,
There's another river on the other side,
Follow the drinking gourd.

When the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the drinking gourd.
For the old man is waiting
for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.