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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

Just look outside as you speed through and you’ll see the true face of America.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. “If you wanna see what this nation’s all about, you gotta ride the rails.
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Or a series of points.Īt the end of the first episode, the man who runs the first station Cora encounters says something that I think kinda sums up the thematic bent of the show. The big tell for those going in blind will be that the Underground Railroad in this story is an actual railroad that travels through a lengthy system of caves, rather than a metaphorical description of the series of safehouses and routes that escaped slaves would make use of to get out of the South.īut, as was the case with another recent Amazon series, “Them” - which was inspired by the actual history of housing discrimination in the mid-20th century - “The Underground Railroad” is using its setting to illustrate a point. The story you see on this show, and in Whitehead’s novel, is a work of fiction. You might be wondering whether “The Underground Railroad,” being set in the antebellum South, is based on a true story. Barry Jenkins and ‘Underground Railroad’ Stars on Significance of Show’s Literal, ‘Fantastical’ Railroad
