“The Underground Railroad” is the story of Cora ( Thuso Mbedu), a slave on a Georgia plantation in the mid-1800s who escapes with another slave named Caesar ( Aaron Pierre) and finds her way to the Underground Railroad, reimagined here as an actual rail system complete with conductors, engineers, and trains. Having said that, I would not advise viewers to binge watch this series in a weekend and think Amazon would have been wiser to release episodes weekly, allowing each of them to be absorbed in a way that binging doesn’t do. This is an experience that shouldn't be rushed. The very structure of “The Underground Railroad” speaks to Jenkins’ ambition, one that somehow feels both episodic in that any of the ten chapters could be deconstructed on their own and often have standalone stories but the project gains its strength when seen as a comprehensive whole. Some of the chapters are nearly feature-length, and could be analyzed and appreciated on their own, not unlike something like “ The Dekalog” or “ Small Axe.” Jenkins has been given complete freedom in terms of structure with episodes running as long as 77 minutes and the shortest coming in just under 20 minutes, more than half of which has no dialogue. The Underground Railroad ended in 1865 with the end of the Civil War and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.Based on the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, “The Underground Railroad” is a story divided into ten chapters, but not in a traditional episodic manner. There are at least seven known paths that led freedom seekers from various points in Michigan to the Canadian shore and it is estimated that 200 Underground Railroad stops existed throughout Michigan between the 1820s and 1865. Members of the congregation founded two anti-slavery organizations, The Amherstburg Baptist Association and the Canadian Anti-Slavery Baptist Organization.ĭetroit was one of the most critical stops on the Underground Railroad, because it was generally the final stop before achieving freedom. Abolitionist leaders including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and John Brown worked with Second Baptist. The church became a vital station on the Underground Railroad, and for over 30 years housed an estimated 5,000 freedom seekers. First located on Fort Street, the congregation moved in 1857 to its current location in Greektown. DeBaptiste also formed a secret organization known as African-American Mysteries or Order of the Men of Oppression, which worked with the Underground Railroad in Detroit.ĭetroit’s Second Baptist Church, Michigan’s first Black congregation, was established in 1836 when 13 freed slaves split from the First Baptist Church. Whitney, which he used to secretly transport slaves from Detroit to Canada. A respected entrepreneur and business leader, he owned a barbershop and a bakery in Detroit before purchasing the steamship T. Born a free man in Virginia in 1814, he relocated to Detroit as an adult. One of most notable abolitionists in Detroit’s network was George DeBaptiste. As the owner of the Finney Hotel in downtown Detroit, he was able to aid the formerly enslaved by housing them in his nearby stable. Seymour Finney was a prominent Detroit Underground Railroad conductor. Therefore, flags and lanterns became clandestine signals, verbal language carried code and handbills and newspapers were often encrypted with Railroad symbols. Secrecy was essential because under the same Act, even in Northern states, individuals found collaborating with freedom seekers could be heavily fined and sometimes imprisoned. However, Canada, which lay only one mile across the Detroit River, prohibited slavery, offering full liberation and safety. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 ensured that even if “runaway” slaves arrived in free states in the North, they could be captured and sent back to the slave holders. Detroit, codenamed “Midnight,” was one of the last “stops” on the Railroad before attaining freedom in Canada. They also facilitated transfer to the subsequent “stop,” or Underground Railroad shelter. In defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act, these individuals provided freedom seekers with food and a place to sleep. Upon arrival, they were met by sympathizers known as “conductors” or “stockholders.” Conductors of all backgrounds risked their livelihood for human freedom by hiding slaves in their houses, barns, attics, cellars, churches, shops and sheds. Freedom seekers generally made their way on foot, often at night, from one town to the next. The Underground Railroad was an early 1800s to 1865 secret network of financial, spiritual, and material aid for formerly enslaved people on their path from plantations in the American South to freedom in Canada.
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