Levi Coffin was a well-known abolitionist, and a very important individual to the success of the Underground Railroad. Dictionary.com describes an abolitionist as a person who tries to stop or get rid of any law or practice that is harmful to the society (“Abolitionist”). Levi Coffin was that and much more. He and most of the people involved in the Quaker religion believed that all men were equal and it was his divine purpose to do everything in his power to help. Levi took it a bit further than most. He was exposed to slavery at a young age and was taught by his family not to support it; he took those teachings and applied them to various stages of his life; including his young adulthood, marriage and retirement (Ludwig).
Levi Coffin was born, the only boy of seven children, in Greensboro, North Carolina on October the 28, 1798, to Levi Coffin and Prudence Williams Coffin (“Levi Coffin”). As a child growing up in North Carolina, Levi was continually surrounded by slavery, although his family did not join in this practice. Their family had taken the philosophies of John Woolman to heart; he had very strong opinions about slavery. Because the family did not engage in supporting slavery, Coffin was required to labor on his father’s farm; therefore he received little formal education. “According to his own account, he became an abolitionist at age seven when he asked a slave who was in a chain gang why he was bound.”(“Levi Coffin”, Wikipedia). An experience by the side of the road brought to pass Levi’s sympathy and strong hatred to any injustice (Ludwig). Levi was only about the age of 15 when he became passionately involved in the Underground Railroad. He did not have any large roles, but all people begin from somewhere. Levi Cof...
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Ludwig, Charles. “Levi Coffin: President of the Underground Railroad.” The Abolitionist. Smith/Mclever.com. 2004. Web. 12 January 2012.
McMahon, Chris. “Faith to Freedom Daily: Catherine and Levi Coffin.” National Underground Railroad FREEDOM CENTER. U.S. Department of Education 2010. Web.16 January 2012.
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Roediger, David and Blatt, Martin H. The Meaning of Slavery in the North. JStor. 1998. Vol. 18
The Underground Railroad is an important topic in Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. In the book, the main characters are transported through a series of safe houses to get to their final destination where they cannot be unwound. This process is very much like the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves in the United States of America in the 1800s.
Franklin, J., Moss, A. Jr. From Slavery to Freedom. Seventh edition, McGraw Hill, Inc.: 1994.
Ophem, Marieke Van. "The Iron Horse: the impact of the railroads on 19th century American society."
However, he understands that it is for the common good that he must withhold this information, saying, “such a statement would most undoubtedly induce greater vigilance on the part of slaveholders than has existed heretofore among them; which would, of course, be the means of guarding a door whereby some dear brother bond-man might escape his galling chains” (Douglass 88?). Douglass would not, for the sake of a good story, share details that would enlighten slaveholders and hinder a “dear brother bond-man” from escaping servitude. Like Harriet Tubman, he acknowledges the importance of secrecy in the practice of illegally freeing slaves. Douglass understood that the Underground Railroad was not simply an organized route or action, but instead it was a (magnificent) operation and all over the (country) slaves were attempting escape. He knew that secrecy was the driving force for the railroad’s success and that any detail could drail the movement completely.Without a full understanding, it may seem that The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is fragmented and vague. But after further research, the undetailed writing style tells an even deeper story of the time in which it was written. Douglass’ novel is now read as a classic piece of educational, historical literature, but it was originally written for a different audience. Contemporary readers were abolitionists, slaves and blacks
Lawrence J. Friedman: Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in American Abolitionists, 1830-1870. Cambridge, Mass., 1982.
Berkin, Carol. "Angelina and Sarah Grimke: Abolitionist Sisters." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014
John Fairfield was a white man, born into a family in Virginia who owned slaves; he never liked the idea of owning slaves, so he became friends with them. When he turned twenty he helped his friend escape by taking him to Canada. When he returned to his family’s farm, he learned his uncle planned to have him arrested so he ran away taking with him a few more slaves to Canada. For a few years he would continue to do this and in turn became one of a few “conductors” of the Underground Railroad. No one really knows how he died some say that he died protecting one of the slaves others say he faked his death to live in peace.
Harriet Tubman is probably the most famous “conductor” of all the Underground Railroads. Throughout a 10-year span, Tubman made more than 20 trips down to the South and lead over 300 slaves from bondage to freedom. Perhaps the most shocking fact about Tubman’s journeys back and forth from the South was that she “never lost a single passenger.”
This excellent biography fluently tells the life story of Douglass; one of the 19th centuries's most famous writers and speakers on abolitionist and human rights causes. It traces his life from his birth as a slave in Maryland, through his self-education, escape to freedom, and subsequent lionization as a renowned orator in England and the United States. Fascinating, too, are accounts of the era's politics, such as the racist views held by some abolitionist leaders and the ways in which many policies made in post-Civil War times have worked to the detriment of today's civil rights movement. The chapter on Frederick Douglass and John Brown is, in itself, interesting enough to commend this powerful biography. The seldom-seen photographs, the careful chapter notes, documentation, and acknowledgements will encourage anybody to keep on learning about Frederick Douglass.
The Underground Railroad despite occurring centuries ago continues to be an “enduring and popular thread in the fabric of America’s national historical memory” as Bright puts it. Throughout history, thousands of slaves managed to escape the clutches of slavery by using a system meant to liberate. In Colson Whitehead’s novel, The Underground Railroad, he manages to blend slave narrative and history creating a book that goes beyond literary or historical fiction. Whitehead based his book off a question, “what if the Underground Railroad was a real railroad?” The story follows two runaway slaves, Cora and Caesar, who are pursued by the relentless slave catcher Ridgeway. Their journey on the railroad takes them to new and unfamiliar locations,
...pate in a society because of race and gender. While the Disquisition of Government, is seen as a great work in American politics, his views, political theory and ideology are off base to certain segments of the American population, and his thoughts would help to maintain slavery.
... the abolitionist movement is fueled by reading The Liberator, a newspaper that stirs his soul in fighting for the anti-slavery cause. While attending an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket on August 11, 1841, Douglass, with encouragement from Mr. William C. Coffin, speaks for the first time to a white audience about slavery.
Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as “The Great Emancipator,” His legacy as the man who freed the slaves, and the savior of the Union is one that fails to be forgotten. He is thought of as a hero, and one of the few to tackle slavery, a problem that has existed in many parts of the world at one time or another. Although Lincoln is credited with ending slavery, his political motives for confronting this issue and his personal views do not make him worthy of all the recognition he receives; the driven abolitionists and daring slaves deserve a much greater portion of the credit.
Ray, Donna Thompson. Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves, c. 1862. Picturing U.S. History. The Graduate Center, City University of New York. n.d. Web. 30 October 2013.