Events/Announcements
Tracks to Freedom
This summer, Chris Lackner is in search of the history
of the Underground Railroad and its connections to Canada. A reporter
from Canada’s Ottawa Citizen newspaper, Chris is walking
more than 500 miles—from Maysville, KY to Canada—for the Citizen's
Tracks to Freedom series. The series is scheduled to run every Wednesday
and Saturday until Chris' journey ends Labour Day Weekend. In addition
to the bi-weekly series, Chris is posting a daily blog to the newspaper’s
website:
Tracks to Freedom. Malcolm Taylor, Tracks to Freedom photographer,
is posting pictures of people and places along the way. IFS faculty
associates Prince Brown Jr., Tiffany Hinton and Bob Wallace have had
the opportunity to be involved with the project. Dr. Brown has even
joined in parts of the walk.
As Chris and Malcolm unearth and publicize US and Canadian UGRR links,
follow their progress by following the link Ottawacitizen.Com and
clicking on Tracks to Freedom. As well, Chris and Malcolm welcome
e-mail messages and encouragement at mail to: railroad@thecitizen.canwest.com.
Fourth Annual Borderlands Conference Hosts Underground Railroad Scholars
On June 9-11, 2006, the Institute for Freedom Studies hosted more than 70 participants at its Borderlands IV Underground Railroad Conference. The three-day event, which was co-sponsored by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (the Freedom Center), featured sessions at both Northern Kentucky University and the Freedom Center. In addition to presentations by scholars who explore a broad range of subjects relating to Underground Railroad history and culture, the conference featured keynote addresses by Fergus M. Bordewich, author of
Bound for Canaan (Harper Collins, 2005), Tony Burroughs, author of
Black Roots: a Beginner’s Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree (Simon and Schuster, 2001), and Bert Lockwood, Jr., director of the University of Cincinnati’s Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights.
Conference participants were treated also to tours of the Freedom Center and to their choice of two bus tours. Those on the "Abolitionism in Black and White" tour traveled to the homes of Rev. John Rankin, John P. Parker, and other historic sites associated with the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley region. “Margaret Garner’s Journey through History” featured tours of the Richwood, KY farm on which Margaret Garner was enslaved, and the Cincinnati site to which she, along with 17 others, escaped, as well as visits to two historical markers commemorating her flight to freedom.
