“The night was filled with darkness and shadows. The sounds of cricket songs were swarming in the air. Someone was hiding outside the small log cabin. It is 1851 and a woman whistled a song called Go Down, Moses. This was a secret code that only slaves knew how to decipher. They knew that Harriet Tubman had come to lead them out of slavery.”
“Years before, a slave had run off and seemed to disappear right in front of his owner’s eyes. The owner of the slave said that the slave must have gone on an underground railroad. This story spread and this is how the Underground Railroad got its name.” It was not a real railroad, but rather the name people gave the route taking slaves north to freedom. Harriet Tubman was called a Conductor on the Underground Railroad and is known as the “Moses of Her People”.
This is the history that students at J.V. Martin Junior High School in Mr. Wayne McRae’s classes are studying. They are reading Escape North, The Story of Harriet Tubman, by Monica Kulling. What better way to learn about the Underground Railroad than to reenact the journey that slaves took northward toward freedom? Students learned about plants and berries that were safe for slaves to eat as they were hiding in the woods. They drew secret codes on the ground that slaves left for each other in order to travel on a safe route toward the north. Students also learned that slaves followed the “Drinking Gourd” or the “the bright star above the dipping ladle” in the sky to lead them northward to safety.
Mr. McRae’s students have a deeper understanding of some of the hardships slaves endured by experiencing a number of events during this time in history. What excursions will Mr. McRae lead his students on next? Only time will tell, but his students are sure their adventures will lead them to wondrous places!