Black Voice News Online - Footsteps to Freedom on UGRR

Footsteps to Freedom on UGRR

Thursday, 01 March 2007

INLAND EMPIRE

It is time to once again start planning for a most unbelievable life changing experience that will not be duplicated: a field study for teachers for the Underground Railroad and an educational trip for youth. By popular demand Black Voice will again present two opportunities to experience history of freedom seekers in the annual Footsteps to Freedom. The first tour will be held on July 6-10, 2007, and is for youth 10 and up and their families. The Educator's Field Study will be held on July 29- August 5, 2007 and educators, retirees and others are invited on this adult only event. The trips are both co-sponsored by the National Parks Service. The educators field study is additionally co-sponsored by the San Bernardino County Office of Education and the Riverside Superintendent of Schools.

2006 Educators in front of Josiah Henson home.

Learn firsthand about the incredible courage of the people who sought freedom or helped others achieve it along the central and lesser known route of the Underground Railroad from Kentucky to Canada. Talk with the descendants of these Americans and Canadians and retrace their footsteps which are now, at last, being preserved through a major effort of the National Park Service. Students will be able to bring this period alive as a result of this travel study experience where they listen to family stories of the interpreters whose ancestors risked everything for freedom. By taking pictures of the safe houses, churches, and barns which allowed the freedom seekers to rest and eat by day as they traveled by night, will help students to better understand the price of freedom we have come to take for granted. Finally, at the end of the more that 900 miles that freedom seekers walked to a land they called Cannan or Canada, participants will meet the descendants of many of these valiant people, visiting the homes of Josiah Henson, "Uncle Tom" and others.

2006 Youth and families in front of Josiah Henson home.

The youth tour will take students to Maysville, KY, Ripley, Ohio, Cincinnati and the new multi million dollar UGRR Museum, Wilberforce University where students will get the opportunity to experience being on a college campus, eating in the "Café" visiting the National Afro American Museum. In Wilberforce and the nearby city of Xenia they will also see many locations that have be certified as UGRR sites. The youth will then move on to Detroit where they will visit several exciting places before going to Canada and meeting the descendents who still live in Canada. Again the students will stay on a college campus giving them the experience they are expected to remember burn into their mind and seamlessly help them to make the transition to go to college.

The educator's trip will cover some of the same territory but will include a more academic curriculum and will end in Rochester, N.Y. with the Frederick Douglass story.

"Talking about the UGRR was one thing, but being able to witness the descendents to these stories was a breath taking reality that they co -exist," said one of the participants.

For information and a brochure call (909) 888-5040 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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