Re-blogging abount Abolition & the Underground Railroad

I don't generally do this, but since I don't have much new to share, I thought I would re-blog a couple of items that might be of interest due to our Underground Railroad connection here in Easton/Greenwich. I hope to be back on track when my office is finally moved next week.

Sojourner Truth:
Olivia Twine writes, "[t]he unveiling of the Sojourner Truth statue in the town of Esopus, NY where the abolitionist  preacher was held a slave as a child, was a remarkable experience. I’ve lived in the Hudson Valley County of Ulster all my life and have never witnessed the 'owning' of the shameful past of slavery before.  Truth’s statue in the Esopus hamlet of Port Ewen represents the only statue in the world of a child slave at work, according to Ulster County Historian Anne Gordon.
Although Truth was well known in her time, her status as an emblem of northern slavery is coming to light on a broad scale. That the people of Port Ewen honor a former slave who left Ulster County and never looked back, that children run their hands over her bronzed back to feel the welts of the beatings she endured here, that the town supervisor proudly describes her as 'a child of Esopus,' suggests that we as a people are ready to move to the healing phase of a sordid aspect of our history..." Read more here.

Harriet Tubman:
"On November 8 and 9, 2013, Cayuga Community College in Auburn, NY will host Harriet Tubman: No Longer Underground, a two-day symposium marking the centennial of the death of Harriet Tubman in 1913..." Continued here...