Underground Railroad Symposium

The Underground Railroad-the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War-refers to the efforts of the enslaved African Americans to escape bondage.

Wherever slavery existed, there were efforts to escape. Some of these efforts were carefully planned with help from others, and some were opportunistic. The methods and routes varied and included escape by both land and sea. These acts of self-emancipation labeled slaves as “fugitives,” “escapees,” or “runaways,” but “freedom seeker” is a more accurate descriptions.

Each subsequent decade in which slavery was legal in the United States, there was an increase in active efforts to assist escape and a refinement in the varied ways this was done.

Through the symposium, we will depend our understanding of this remarkable movement of agency by those bound by a system defined by denying agency. We will explore its importance nationally and in eastern North Carolina in particular.

Join us as we bring scholars and educators to our site for a day of learning as we uncover some old and new “hidden history.”

More details to come