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Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 census, down from 195,111 at of the 2010 United States Census. It is the fourth-most-populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery.
The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. The network was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. 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, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. 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 began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. One estimate suggests that by 1850, approximately 100,000 enslaved people had escaped via the network.
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is a museum in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, based on the history of the Underground Railroad. Opened in 2004, the Center also pays tribute to all efforts to "abolish human enslavement and secure freedom for all people."
John P. Parker was an American abolitionist, inventor, iron moulder and industrialist. Parker, who was African American, helped hundreds of slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad resistance movement based in Ripley, Ohio. He saved and rescued fugitive slaves for nearly fifteen years. He was one of the few black people to patent an invention before 1900. His house in Ripley has been designated a National Historic Landmark and restored.
Pittsburgh, surrounded by rivers and hills, has a unique transportation infrastructure that includes roads, tunnels, bridges, railroads, inclines, bike paths, and stairways.
The Niagara Falls Station and Customhouse Interpretive Center is an intermodal transit complex in Niagara Falls, New York. It serves Amtrak trains and Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority buses, houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices servicing the Canada–United States border, and houses the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center.
Henry Walton Bibb was an American author and abolitionist who was born a slave. After escaping from slavery to Canada, he founded an abolitionist newspaper, Voice of the Fugitive. He returned to the US and lectured 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 fleeing slaves who passed through it.
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, about 40 km east of Windsor. Today, many of the original buildings remain, and in 1985, the site was opened as an Underground Railroad museum. The site forms part of the African-Canadian Heritage Tour in Southern Ontario.
South Buxton is an unincorporated community in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada. The population is approximately 78. The majority of the population is retirees. South Buxton has only three roads and a single church. It is near the South Buxton raceway. The closest towns are North Buxton and Merlin.
Detroit is a popular city for cycling. It is flat with an extensive road network with a number of recreational and competitive opportunities and is, according to cycling advocate David Byrne, one of the top eight biking cities in the world. The city has invested in greenways and bike lanes and other bicycle-friendly infrastructure. Bike rental is available from the riverfront and tours of the city's architecture can be booked.
North Buxton is a dispersed rural community located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1849 as a community for and by former African-American slaves who escaped to Canada to gain freedom. Rev. William King, a Scots-Irish/American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist, had organized the Elgin Association to buy 9,000 acres of land for resettlement of the refugees, to give them a start in Canada. Within a few years, numerous families were living here, having cleared land, built houses, and developed crops. They established schools and churches, and were thriving before the American Civil War.
James Madison Bell was an African-American poet, orator, and political activist who was involved in the abolitionist movement against slavery. He was the first native African-American poet in Ohio and was called the "Bard of the Maumee," of Maumee River. According to Joan R. Sherman: "As poet and public speaker, Bell was one of the nineteenth century's most dedicated propagandists for African-American freedom and civil rights."
George DeBaptiste was a prominent African-American conductor on the Underground Railroad in southern Indiana and Detroit, Michigan. Born free in Virginia, he moved as a young man to the free state of Indiana. In 1840, he served as valet and then White House steward for US President William Henry Harrison, who was from that state. In the 1830s and 1840s DeBaptiste was an active conductor in Madison, Indiana. Located along the Ohio River across from Kentucky, a slave state, this town was a destination for refugee slaves seeking escape from slavery.
William P. Newman (1810/15–1866) was a fugitive slave who escaped from Virginia, moved north and obtained an education at Oberlin College. Becoming an ordained Baptist minister, he pastored for a few years at the Union Baptist Church of Cincinnati, Ohio. He made numerous mission trips to Canada, founding schools and preaching. He was known for writing on abolitionist themes. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 passed, he settled his family in Ontario, where they remained until 1859. Leaving Canada, he first immigrated with his family to Haiti, but came into conflict with the Catholicism he found there. After trying to immigrate again to Jamaica, he returned to the United States after the outbreak of the Civil War and re-established his pastorate at the Union Baptist Church. He died in a cholera epidemic in 1866.
Carl B. Westmoreland was an American community organizer, preservationist, and senior historian at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. In 1967, he was one of the founding members of the Mount Auburn Good Housing Foundation, with money provided by private donations. The purpose of the Mount Auburn Good Housing Foundation was partly in response to the "rampant crime, decrepit housing owned by absentee landlords, and no influence within City Hall" and one of the best ways to improve these circumstances was to "help more young people by helping them find a decent place to live and getting them jobs."
Isaac D. Shadd was a newspaper publisher, printer, politician, and bookkeeper. Before the American Civil War, he and his sister Mary Ann Shadd moved to Chatham, Ontario, and published the anti-slavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. He and his wife taught at the Chatham Mission School. He was involved in the planning of the John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry and led the Chatham Vigilance Committee to rescue Sylvanus Demarest in 1858. He returned to the United States and served as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era from 1871 until 1876. From 1874 to 1875, he was the Speaker of the House.
References
- ↑ Bynum, Marvin (April 2007). "The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route Aims to Diversify Cycling". Athletic Business. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
- ↑ Bleyer, Jennifer. "A Bike Trail that Traces the Way to Freedom". New York Times. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- 1 2 "Biking the Freedom Trail". Associated Press. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- ↑ "UGRR route description". Adventure Cycling Association. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- ↑ "New Cycling Route Bring Underground Railroad Alive". Adventure Travel News. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- ↑ "If you go...Underground Railroad Bicycle Route". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
