Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley.Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad Underground Railroad, in U.S. history, loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks. in the Ohio Valley. By Keith P. Griffler. The Ohio River Ohio River Major river, eastern central U.S. Formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, it flows northwest out of Pennsylvania, and west and southwest to form the state boundaries of Ohio–West Virginia, Ohio-Kentucky, Indiana-Kentucky, and Valley. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and was organized in 1969 as successor to the University of Kentucky Press. The university had sponsored scholarly publication since 1943. , c. 2004. Pp. xviii, 169. $35.00, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-8131-2298-8.) The Underground Railroad has been the subject of a recent resurgence in scholarly and popular interest. The results have been impressive, including three biographies on Harriet Tubman and the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. Taken together, these efforts have moved us toward a more accurate and complex understanding of the Underground Railroad's structure and operation, and Keith P. Griffler's work is a significant addition. Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley addresses two key issues. First, the author demonstrates that far from being the peripheral helpers or passive passengers depicted by most early authors, African Americans were in fact at the center of the Underground Railroad from its inception. Whites joined blacks and built on their efforts, while blacks remained important in what was an increasingly organized institution. Griffler calls the Underground Railroad the "first successful interracial in·ter·ra·cial adj. Relating to, involving, or representing different races: interracial fellowship; an interracial neighborhood. liberation movement A liberation movement is a group organizing a rebellion against a colonial power (Anti-imperialism) or seeking separation from a state for parts of the population that feel suppressed by the majority. ," but he notes that blacks and whites often played different roles (p. xi). While whites were a significant part of what he calls support operations in the North, it was mainly black people on the front lines, helping escaped slaves cross into free states those of the United States before the Civil War, in which slavery had ceased to exist, or had never existed. - Abbott. See also: Free . Although such efforts were not always structured, lasting, or documented, they were frequent enough and successful enough to reveal the existence of a strong and activist African American community. The Ohio Valley was one such frontline, one that Griffler argues was more relevant than has been generally recognized. The author shows that the Ohio River, particularly the area around Cincinnati, was a hotbed hotbed, low, glass-covered frame structure for starting tender plants. It differs from a cold frame only in that the soil is heated—either artificially as by underground electric wiring or steampipes, or naturally with partially fermented stable manure, which of fugitive slave In the history of slavery in the United States, a fugitive slave was a slave who had escaped his or her enslaver often with the intention of traveling to a place where the state of his or her enslavement was either illegal or not enforced. activity. Griffler makes his case well, and in doing so he not only offers a necessary corrective to earlier Underground Railroad history but also reminds us that black activity of this sort could not have occured in a vacuum, the isolated acts of a heroic few. His work is strongest in depicting the vibrant, interconnected black community of the Ohio Valley. Blacks in this story are not victims or passive observers of fate. They lived in neighborhoods, worked at jobs, married and had children, and sometimes risked their lives to help others and strike a blow against slavery. The book's only faults are its tendency toward too much repetition of the main themes and, in a few places, the absence of connections between specific incidents and the overall theme. The Peyton Polly case, which involved the kidnapping of a family of free blacks, is an example of the problem of weak connections. But these are minor flaws in a very solidly researched and useful new work. CAROL WILSON Washington College |
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