Underground Railroad (DVD, 2003)

I needed some historical background for a small segment of a fictional novel I'm writing. As history books over time have condensed formerly comprehensive topics, such as the two World Wars and the Freedom Movement by those sold in slavery, the History Channel's brilliant DVD restored lost information, as well as presenting new material that I required.

The slave trade was big business. Economically, the nation as a whole stood to benefit from and was highly dependent on cotton as a product of commerce.

Neither a railroad nor underground, this informal means of escape for fleeing slaves consisted of "conductors," both white and black, and "stations" or "depots" which were people's homes along the route to the north. Runaways, if caught, even as far north as Boston, were returned to their owners and would be beaten or killed. This, along with the misguided and racist Dred Scott Decision (slaves equal property - U.S. Supreme Court), publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852 and John Brown's raid in Harper's Ferry, fueled the growing Abolitionist Movement in the north, propelling the nation toward Civil War.

This DVD zeroes in on all aspects of the issue. It achieves many high points, especially when it traces famous escapes of people such as Henry "Box" Brown, who mailed himself in a crate from Richmond to Philadelphia, 26 hours by rail! -or in covering the successes of Harriet Tubman, "the Moses of her people." One segment dealt with a descendant of William Still finding a book of his written in 1872 and which documented the stories of runaway slaves. Names (even those of southern slave owners), dates and places made this discovery eerie, well beyond that of mere coincidence.

Bonus material includes the complete A&E Biography episode on Frederick Douglass, along with several other defining pieces.

"Underground Railroad" is a not-to-be-missed DVD.

Being a history buff and very interested in the UGRR here in Maine where I live and elsewhere this is a jammed packed DVD of information for the student of history or simply curious about the UGRR.

This was a very informative and interesting chapter in history. The content kept my attetion and flowed seamlessly from one topic to another.

This video is a historical review by a narrator. It isn't the movie I thought I was buying. You can get the same off Unitedstreaming for educators. I wanted the movie, but the seller didn't indicate it was only a narrated one from History Channel.

This is a great documentary. We were told about it as background for a schoolwork TV/Film documentary project on The Underground Railroad.

But the documentary you SHOULD have seen, prompted by THIS documentary, was by a fellow student who didn't stop at 1865, as this does. As the official Underground Railway does.

He brought the "Underground Railway" all the way to today, and used Senator Obama as the final picture. I'm not shifting to politics here. Don't miss my point.

Nobody in class did what he did. Few even got the idea of what he had said with his video. My fellow student used high quality pictures in rapid slides, starting about 1860 and showing the progression in proper order of men who knocked down the "next" slave fence - people you recognize without captions: Jorden, Woods, Robinson, dozens of other blacks who continued the "Underground Raiload" escape from the mental confinement of slavery where others continue to believe Blacks should be confined.

Without saying it, his documentary suggested the "Underground Railway" didn't magically give a beginning and ending to the path to freedom and equality, from confinement and slavery. It was perhaps the crack in the gate where we whites believed we were a wonderful help in freeing slaves.

But blacks, without maps, without a path, unable to read or write, without friends, hunted with guns and dogs, hunted down by whites who were anxious for the rewards equalling thousand of dollars today if you caught just one escaping slave. "Slaves" who could be killed without any legal penality to the murderer - - - those brave slave runaways aren't given much credit, and the applause goes to those whites who CLAIM they helped.

Yet - think about that. If anybody helped an escaping slave, they'd be immediately jailed. Probably would be reported by their neighbors. Or if their houses were known "stops on the Underground Railway" as they claimed - they would be surrounded by bounty hunters.

So who says, really, that they helped? That ANYBODY helpted? It had to be secret. So we take their word for it. Nobody, other than themselves, who were eager to share in the gratitude after 1865, could prove or disprove they helped.

And the spotlight goes out. It's 1865. Slaves were free.

The documentary you SHOULD have seen is the one that shows the railroad is still needed. The hate isn't gone. To verbally shoot a black with an ugly joke is a popular sport. But slowly, the reasons for discrimination seem to erode. It is getting harder for the bigots to point to an inferior quality.

It is when bigots won't want to point and have nothing to point at, that the railraod does end. Let's hope we see it coming into that last station.

This is an excellent CD about the Underground Railroad. It's a little long but thats only because it goes into so much depth. It not only describes the perils of traveling to the North and to Canada but goes into details about famous people who helped the people escape, giving biographies of them. It's an incredible story that needed to be told.

I use this title every year with my middle school students to introduce them to an era in our country's history that is often forgotten. This DVD offers a thorough depiction of the why/how/end of this secret series of escape routes to freedom for slaves who had no other alternatives. An historical account by historians, it offers a mix of interviews and reenacted scenarios.