This month, the Ocean City Arts Center is presenting “Death or Liberty”, an exhibit of images created by Cape May County artist/illustrator Sydnei SmithJordan. Her exhibit will have a special focus on Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born as a slave in the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She escaped to freedom in Philadelphia in 1849 when she was in her twenties. During the next 12 years, she risked her life and freedom by returning to Maryland 19 times to help others escape through the “Underground Railroad”. She is certainly a hero to be remembered and honored.
However, there were many heroes in that “Underground Railroad”, and many, if not most of them where white. The “Underground Railroad”, of course, was not a railroad, and it did not have underground tunnels. It was a network of roughly 3,000 white and black Americans who helped anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 blacks escape from slavery into freedom during the forty years before the Civil War. It was called “Underground” because escaped slaves seemed to suddenly disappear. It was called a “Railroad” because members of the network communicated with each other in a code that used railroad terms like “station”, “depot”, “conductor”.
Click this link to learn more. Dispute Over Cape May Landmark Accidentally Uncovers Rare, Authentic Black History – Liberty and Prosperity
The number of slaves who escaped was small compared to the nearly 4 million blacks who were owned as slaves in the 15 slave states of the South, and the 430,000 free blacks who then lived in America. However, the Underground Railroad was a powerful force in ending slavery in America in several ways. First, most slaves escaped from the four “border” states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Also each slave was valuable property, often insured and bought on credit. Escaped slaves caused major damage to the economy in these states. Slaveowners throughout the South were convinced that even more slaves would escape when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. As a result, they got their states to quit the Union. This caused the Civil War which ended slavery completely.
Helping blacks escape slavery was dangerous for both blacks and whites. Anyone caught helping slaves escape faced heavy fines and prison. The bounty hunters and runaway slave catchers were often violent, dangerous men who beat or killed anyone helping a slave escape when they thought they could get away with it.
Most history and art exhibits today only tell the story of blacks like Harriet Tubman, who helped other blacks escape. However few blacks could travel large distances without food, shelter and transportation from whites. The “Underground Railroad” succeeded because many, if not most of its participants were white.
It is important to teach that thousands of whites were actively opposing the enslavement of blacks years before millions fought, and 310,000 died in the Civil War that ended slavery. “Woke” Democrats do everything they can to avoid these facts. They want to present the false and distorted “critical race” narrative that America was a racist country in which all whites supported slavery and all blacks were victims.
Click this link to learn more. 16 Stories To Refute “400 Years of Racism in America” Lie. Share Them With Your Children. But Most Important Story Is The One You Tell Of Your Own Family. – Liberty and Prosperity
It is therefore important to also tell the stories of men and women like the dozen randomly picked and posted below. Their work with the “Underground Railroad” also undermined slavery and the economy of the slave states in the years before the Civil War. However, they are rarely, if ever, mentioned when that story is told in America today.
Hannah and Daniel Gibbons – Lancaster, Pennsylvania History
Daniel Gibbonsparticipation in the Underground Railroad wasalmost a family tradition. His father, James Gibbons, was very active in concealing fleeing African Americans and his son, Dr. Joseph Gibbons, continued the work of his father. Daniel Gibbons’ “life-long opposition to slavery was grounded in the Quaker ideal of compassion for ‘all who were downtroddenand oppressed of every nationality and color'”.
Quaker Abigail Goodwin (above left) was one of the figures whose work was instrumental in the success of the Underground Railroad in New Jersey.
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