Underground Railroad Free Press
News and views on the Underground Railroad • Vol. XVIIII, no. 107, May 2024
Published bimonthly since 2006, we bring together organizations and people interested in the historical and the contemporary Underground Railroad. Free Press is the home of Lynx, the central registry of contemporary Underground Railroad organizations, and the Free Press prizes awarded annually for leadership, preservation and advancement of knowledge, the community's highest honors. Underground Railroad Free Press is emailed free of charge around the 15th of odd-numbered months. Readership is about 26,000. Reach us at http://urrfreepress.com/contact.html.
In This Issue
New York City impedes again
Ten Underground Railroad myths
The Underground Railroad in Florida?
Things you can do at the Free Press website
This Time It’s Greenwich Village
Founded in 1980, Village Preservation works to document, celebrate, and preserve the special architectural and cultural heritage of the Greenwich Village, East Village, and NoHo neighborhoods of New York City. The nonprofit has successfully advocated for landmark designation of more than 1,250 buildings and helped secure zoning protections for nearly 100 blocks. Each day it monitors smore than 6,500 building lots for demolition, alteration, or new construction permits, and monitors the more than 3,000 landmarked properties in the area for changes which must go through the city's public review and approval process.
What the organization also does is keep an eye on the very broad history of its area for clues as to what buildings to protect. This paid off recently when an Underground Railroad safehouse and its historical operator came to light.
Last November, Village Preservation research discovered that trailblazing black suffragist and educator Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet lived at 50 West 13th Street around 1870, adding to the already incredibly rich African American history of this house which was home to pioneering Black businessman and civil rights leader Jacob Day, as well as the revered 13th Street Repertory Theater. Nevertheless, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission had resisted landmarking the endangered 1846 house, and expressed doubt that Garnet’s tenure there was lasting or even true.
However, new Village Preservation research irrefutably established that Garnet lived at the address from at least 1866 to 1874, critical years in her life and career., Garnet founded the first suffrage organization for Black women and was the first Black female school principal in New York City. The recent research also further demonstrated how Jacob Day turned his home into a hub of black civil rights activity at a time in the 19th century when Greenwich Village was the center of Black life in the city.
But obstacles remain. In spite of its claims to prioritize recognizing Black and other underrepresented histories, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has refused to landmark the Garnet-Day House for nearly more than three years during which time it has become increasingly dilapidated and endangered. Even City Councilmember Carlina Rivera who represents the site has refused to support landmark designation. Visit http://www.villagepreservation.org for more.
This reminds Free Press of similar foot-dragging by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in protecting two other Underground Railroad sites in the city for years until local preservationists backed by Free Press editorializing were able to prevail. Here we go again.
The previous two were Hopper-Gibbons House, Manhattan's sole surviving Underground Railroad safe-house, and Truesdell House in Brooklyn. Preserving the latter safe-house led to a Free Press Prize for Preservation while preserving Hopper-Gibbons House led to four.
Setting the Record Straight
Myth: If it isn't documented, it wasn't on the Underground Railroad.
Fact: Documenting illegal activity was too dangerous, so fewer than 4 percent of site claims today have solid documentation. Most of what we know or suspect rests on stories handed down by families and property owners.
Myth: Slaves hung coded quilts at windows or on fences to alert fugitives to local conditions.
Fact: This myth was entirely made up, then embellished by an anthropologist in the 1990s who later recanted it.
Myth: The Underground Railroad was a subterranean mechanical conveyance.
Fact: The term "underground railroad" is a figure of speech which first appeared in print in an 1842 St. Louis newspaper article. It is surprising how many American adults even today take the term literally. While actual railroads did occasionally transport freedom seekers and a few hiding places were underground, nearly all Underground Railroad activity was on the surface on foot.
Myth: The Underground Railroad was run by white abolitionists and Quakers.
Fact: They were involved and sincerely so but most escapes were unaided, and most of those who did provide aid were Black, either free or enslaved.
Myth: The Underground Railroad operated throughout the South.
Fact: Risk was far too great for all but a smattering of coordinated help until one reached northern-most Virginia or Kentucky.
Myth: Most fugitives found sanctuary along the way in secret rooms in attics, cellars or tunnels.
Fact: This fond image did happen but most fugitives travelled out of doors or, if sheltered at all, more likely were hidden in barns or other out-buildings.
Myth: The Underground Railroad enabled hundreds of thousands of people to escape bondage.
Fact: There are no convincing means of estimating the number of freedom seekers, successful or not. Best guesses are in the very low six figures.
Myth: Entire families commonly escaped together.
Fact: This happened but seldom because of difficulty that children had on escapes. The most common freedom seeker was a young unmarried man going alone.
Free Press thanks Henry Louis Gates for some of the myths above.
Did You Know . . .
“Did You Know” is an occasional feature of Underground Railroad Free Press. Email your factoids for Did You Know to us at info@urrfreepress.com.
. . . that about two-thirds of claimed Underground Railroad sites have a rating on the 1-to-5 Wellman Scale of 2, "Oral tradition with no reason to doubt." These sites are thus the heart of the Underground Railroad. Only 4 percent of claims have been able to be substantiated with documentation and get a Wellman Scale rating of 5.
. . . that the Underground Railroad began before Jamestown? Often cited as the start of the Underground Railroad is the year 1619 when enslaved Africans first arrived at the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, established in 1607. However, the first recorded shipment of enslaved people from Africa to the Americas occurred in 1585 to the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, Florida. Though it would not have a name for another 250 years, the Underground Railroad began the first time an enslaved person escaped from St. Augustine and was aided by any other person, most likely a Native American.
. . . that Underground Railroad safe-houses and routes existed in the South? Not many but some have been well documented including a water route from Pensacola to the British Virgin Islands, and the Janney family and others in the Quaker village of Waterford, Virginia.
Things You Can Do at the Free Press Website
Click on links at urrFreePress.com to:
Subscribe
Join the Community or view Lynx
Make a Free Press Prize nomination
Read Underground Railroad surveys results
Submit news, letters, articles or ads
List an Underground Railroad site
Rate an Underground Railroad site
Fact: They were involved and sincerely so but most escapes were unaided, and most of those who did provide aid were Black, either free or enslaved --- this is incorrect and something I've been trying to correct for almost two decades now:
Truth: The Underground Railroad was an integrated network, in which both blacks and whites cooperated. At times, it was solely black persons involved and others, just whites. It depended on the geographic location and demographics. Think of the operations of William Still and members of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, and Sidney Howard Gary and Louis Napoleon. Think of the Boston Vigilance Committee, its leadership mostly white but with strong support from the black community who for the most part harbored the fugitive slaves it helped. Think of Detroit and Chicago, where the leadership was black and whose subordinates were white. Think John Brown white and Harriet Tubman black. It was the first truly integrated organized effort of black and white persons working together for the common good in our nation's history and that is why it is so important, so it can serve as a role model for our country in our effort to end racism in America.