Pathway to Freedom
Pathway to Freedom is a drama about Quakers involved in supporting abolition and the Underground Railroad. Written by Chapel Hill dramatist Mark R. Sumner.
PATHWAY TO FREEDOM by Mark R. Sumner has been presented by the Snow Camp Historical Drama Society at Snow Camp, NC since 1994. The epic drama is an exciting account of the struggles and heroism of the 1840s and 1850s along the ‘Underground Railroad’ from North Carolina to Indiana. It tells of events and the people involved - chiefly anti-slavery North Carolinians and freed AA slaves—in the secret transportation of escaped slaves from central NC to Indiana, Ohio, and further north during the 1840s and 1850s. Although at this time several organized religions and individuals opposing slavery in the state held their anti-slavery activities to lawful means, many persons broke the law to participate in what came to be called the Underground Railroad. Although largely dealing with actual events, the drama’s story is fictional as are the main characters, which are based on composites of actual persons. Several characters, like Levi Coffin, Frederick Douglass, and Rutherford B. Hayes, are historical. The dramatic focus falls on George Vestal, the son of a slave-owning family, and the play chronicles how he becomes involved in the slave families in their hope of gaining freedom and dignity as individuals. The rich music in the play is based upon the music of the period and enriches the emotions that flow during the play.
The author’s theme, by his own admission, is that cooperative and compassionate action to support human freedom is more important than violence and revenge in furthering civilization.
In 1994, Ms. Myrick was selected from a list of candidates throughout the nation to direct for the United States Historical Outdoor Theater Association in North Carolina. In doing so, Ms. Myrick became the first woman and the first African American to direct a historical outdoor drama in America. Her production of "Pathway to Freedom" marked the premier of this award-winning and critically acclaimed play. Almost 25 years later, the show has been going strong. That same year, Ms. Myrick was commissioned by the House of Blues Foundation in New Orleans to write and direct a play about the history of the Blues. The play was so successful that it showcased at every ‘House of Blues’ in the country.
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century, and used by enslaved African-Americans to escape into free states and Canada. The scheme was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. Not literally but metaphorically a railroad, the enslaved who risked escape and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the "Underground Railroad". Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, or overseas. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad was formed in the late 1700s. It ran north and grew steadily until the Civil War began. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 enslaved people had escaped via the "Railroad".
Guilford County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 488,406, making it the third-most populous county in North Carolina. As of 2019, the population is estimated to be 537,174. Its seat is Greensboro. Since 1938, an additional county court has been located in High Point, North Carolina. The county was formed in 1771.
Alamance County is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 151,131. Its county seat is Graham. Formed in 1849 from Orange County to the east, Alamance County has been the site of significant historical events, textile manufacturing, and agriculture.
Levi Coffin was an American Quaker, Republican, abolitionist, farmer, businessman and humanitarian. An active leader of the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio, some unofficially called Coffin the "President of the Underground Railroad," estimating that three thousand fugitive slaves passed through his care. The Coffin home in Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana, is now a museum, sometimes called the Underground Railroad's "Grand Central Station".
The phenomenon of slaves running away, seeking to gain freedom, is as old as the institution of slavery itself. In the United States, "fugitive slaves" were slaves who left their master and traveled without authorization; generally they tried to reach states or territories where slavery was banned, including Canada, or, until 1821, Spanish Florida. Most slave law tried to control slave travel by requiring them to carry official passes if traveling without a master with them.
Snow Camp is an unincorporated community in southern Alamance County, North Carolina noted for its rich history and as the site of the Snow Camp Outdoor Theater. The community has a large Quaker population centered on the pre-revolutionary era Cane Creek Friends Meeting. The community was founded by Quaker Simon Dixon around 1750 after visiting the area and purchasing 500 acres from the British Government for 252 pence. Through The Earl of Granville, he led a revolt against the British Government because of unfair taxation, not by fighting but by bankrolling the cause. After the Battle of Guilford Court House in Guilford County, North Carolina, General Cornwallis of the British Government won but was injured in the Guilford Court House Battle, led by General Nathanael Greene of the Revolutionaries. General Cornwallis regrouped in Snow Camp and occupied the Snow Camp community.
Thomas Garrett was an American abolitionist and leader in the Underground Railroad movement before the American Civil War.
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) played a major role in the abolition movement against slavery in both the United Kingdom and in the United States of America. Quakers were among the first white people to denounce slavery in the American colonies and Europe, and the Society of Friends became the first organization to take a collective stand against both slavery and the slave trade, later spearheading the international and ecumenical campaigns against slavery.
The Coffin House is a National Historic Landmark located in the present-day town of Fountain City in Wayne County, Indiana. The two-story, eight room, brick home was constructed circa 1838–39 in the Federal style. The Coffin home became known as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad because of its location where three of the escape routes to the North converged and the number of fugitive slaves who passed through it.
Daniel Hughes (1804–1880) was a conductor, agent and station master in the Underground Railroad based in Loyalsock Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. He was the owner of a barge on the Pennsylvania Canal and transported lumber from Williamsport on the West Branch Susquehanna River to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Hughes hid runaway slaves in the hold of his barge on his return trip up the Susquehanna River to Lycoming County, where he provided shelter to the runaways on his property near the Loyalsock Township border with Williamsport before they moved further north and to eventual freedom in Canada. Hughes' home was located in a hollow or small valley in the mountains just north of Williamsport. This hollow is now known as Freedom Road, having previously been called Nigger Hollow. In response to the actions of concerned African American citizens of Williamsport, the pejorative name was formally changed by the Williamsport City Council in 1936.
The John Freeman Walls Historic Site and Underground Railroad Museum is a 20-acre (81,000 m2) historical site located in Puce, now Lakeshore, Ontario, Canada, about 25 miles east of Windsor.
The Mount Pleasant Historic District encompasses the historic center of the village of Mount Pleasant, Ohio. Founded in 1803 by anti-slavery Quakers, the village was an early center of abolitionist activity and a well-known haven for fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. The village center is relatively little altered since the antebellum period. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Districts in 1974, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005.
The Underground Railroad in Indiana was part of a larger, unofficial, and loosely-connected network of groups and individuals who aided and facilitated the escape of runaway slaves from the southern United States. The network in Indiana gradually evolved in the 1830s and 1840s, reached its peak during the 1850s, and continued until slavery was abolished throughout the United States at the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It is not known how many fugitive slaves escaped through Indiana on their journey to Michigan and Canada. An unknown number of Indiana's abolitionists, anti-slavery advocates, and people of color, as well as Quakers and other religious groups illegally operated stations along the network. Some of the network's operatives have been identified, including Levi Coffin, the best-known of Indiana's Underground Railroad leaders. In addition to shelter, network agents provided food, guidance, and, in some cases, transportation to aid the runaways.
William Parker was a former slave who escaped from Maryland to Pennsylvania, where he became an abolitionist and anti-slavery activist in Christiana. He was a farmer and led a black self-defense organization. He was notable as a principal figure in the Christiana incident, 1851, also known as the Christiana Resistance. Edward Gorsuch, a Maryland slaveowner who owned four slaves who had fled over the state border to Parker's farm, was killed and other white men in the party to capture the fugitives were wounded. The events brought national attention to the challenges of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
Spring Friends Meeting House is a historic Quaker meeting house located at Snow Camp, Alamance County, North Carolina. The fourth and current meeting house was built in 1907, and is a small rectangular frame one-story gable-front building. It features Gothic Revival style lancet windows and a short, plain rectangular cupola with pyramidal roof. Spring Friends Meeting is an active congregation of Quakers from the Alamance, Chatham, Orange, Guilford and Randolph County area of North Carolina. Members of the Religious Society of Friends first started "meeting at the spring" around 1761, with the congregation formally recognized by North Carolina Yearly Meeting in 1773. The adjacent contributing cemetery dates from the founding of the meeting, about 1761. It contains the graves of some of the earliest Quaker settlers in Alamance County, as well as the unmarked graves of approximately 25 American Revolutionary War soldiers killed in the 1781 Battle of Lindley's Mill. The battle itself was waged around the meeting house, with governor Thomas Burke and other officials held prisoner in the original meeting house during the battle.
Simon A. Dixon was the founder and prominent member of the community of Snow Camp, North Carolina. He was also one of the founding members of the Cane Creek Friends Meeting, the first Quaker community in the Piedmont region of North Carolina.
The Cane Creek Friends Meeting, founded in 1751, is considered the first established Quaker community in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. The site was occupied by British troops during the American Revolutionary War.
Abolitionism in the United States was the movement that sought to end slavery in the United States, and was active both before and during the American Civil War. In the Americas and Western Europe, abolitionism was a movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and to free the slaves. In the 18th century, Enlightenment thinkers condemned slavery on humanistic grounds, and English Quakers and some Evangelical denominations condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans or descendants of Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved. In the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. The Colony of Georgia originally prohibited slavery.
Freedom: The Underground Railroad is a 2013 co-operative board game designed by Brian Mayer and published by Academy Games, their first game in the Freedom Series. The game has drawn positive attention for its approach and handling of the topic.
The Underground Railroad, published in 2016, is the sixth novel by American author Colson Whitehead.
