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Taking
New Passengers
As
organizers of The Underground Railroad: Quests for Freedom
prepared to begin their daylong conference at the College
of the Saint Rose on Saturday, it was obvious they had underestimated
the size of the crowd that would attend. Three years ago,
the conference, whose purpose is to raise awareness and stimulate
interest in the Underground Railroad movement in the Capital
Region, had been held at Trinity United Methodist Church in
Albany, and only a few dozen people were present. This year,
attendance grew to more than 200. The sight of bare
refreshments tables and huddles of people standing around
with no place to sit made it apparent.
“It’s
a wonderful thing to outgrow your space, because that means
there’s growing interest in the project,” said Mary Liz Stewart,
cofounder of the Underground Railroad History Project of the
Capital Region. She and husband Paul Stewart began the project
to research and stimulate interest in what they consider the
often-overlooked Underground Railroad activity in the area.
After searching for local incidents that Stewart, an elementary
school teacher, could bring back to her classroom, both were
surprised at the amount of information available and wanted
to share it with the public.
The conference crowd was made up of teachers, students, historians,
and interested community members. The play Passage to Freedom:
A Spiritual Journey, performed by the Underground Railroad
players, and the keynote speech, African American Freedom
Seekers and the Quest for Liberty, given by Saint Rose assistant
professor Risa Faussette, seemed geared toward appealing to
a diverse crowd. The bulk of historical information was reserved
for the workshops, which focused on local connections to the
movement, and resources that teachers could use to enrich
classroom lessons.
Charity Petti and Loretta Rufa, teachers at Berne-Knox-Westerlo
Elementary School, agreed the conference had provided them
with new information they could teach their students. “When
she [Faussette] was talking about Native Americans and that
they had such a part in harboring slaves—that was news to
me—I was surprised,” Rufa said.
Others were not as impressed. Sandra Spaulding saw a flyer
at the Old Fort House Museum in Fort Edward, where she works,
and wanted to bring back specific historical information she
could use in her work. After the keynote speech, she said,
“My purpose was to learn about the Underground Railroad network,
and I didn’t get a whole lot of real information.”
Odell Winfield, a book vendor at the conference, who also
attended two years ago, said he’s seen a real change in the
number of people interested in the project, and attributes
a change in community to it. “Two years ago the conversation
was, ‘So what, slavery’s over, the apologies are over,’ ”
he said. “Now people are digging at the cause of slavery and
steps are taken in educating the public about it.”
—Liz
Healy
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