Desire for freedom told at CSC program

“My job is to analyze and interpret the Underground Railroad,” said James R. Hill III, the Midwest regional coordinator for the National Park Services National Underground Railroad to Freedom program.

“My job is to educate the public by showing that the freedom seekers who used the Underground Railroad truly valued the ideal of freedom.”

The Network to Freedom program is different than what the National Park Service usually deals with, Hill pointed out. The program has no national park or trails since it is impossible to locate single Underground Railroad sites because there were a large number of trails, hiding spots and houses used to help escaped slaves find their freedom in the North.

Hill showed a map that traced the trails and roads slaves used to get across Ohio. The map looked like a large spider web with the many trails; making it difficult to pinpoint the specific locations.

An Ohio State professor, Wilbur Siebert, drew the map in the 1890s and was the first person to write a scholarly report on the Underground Railroad. Siebert had an extensive network that dealt with the Underground Railroad. He had many students and other contacts who talked to slaves after they made it to the North. Siebert retained the information and eventually published a book on the topic.

William Still was another person who wrote about the Underground Railroad in the same era. He was a free black man who chose to highlight individual stories. Hill said that Still sometimes took a fantastical approach as opposed to Siebert’s scholarly approach, and his writings aren’t as highly regarded.

The Network to Freedom program is designed to promote programs and partnerships to commemorate, preserve sites and other resources associated with, and educate the public about the Underground Railroad.

Naturally the Underground Railroad that was operating prior to the Civil War is the centerpiece of the National Park’s Network to Freedom, but Hill reiterated several times that the emphasis is on the freedom seekers and not the hiding spots.

He said that there is a wonderful story for each freedom seeker and he feels that part of his job is to relate each individual story to people around the world.

Hill prefers to call fugitive escaped slaves “freedom seekers” because he said that fugitive seems too punitive. “A freedom seeker is more appropriate because that’s what everyone is entitled to,” he said.

Hill also said there is much more to do with the story of freedom seekers and their flights to freedom than just the Underground Railroad because the idea of freedom is a universal one. “This is not just a black or white thing, it’s a combined heritage,” he said.

Hill talked about the history of how the Underground Railroad came to pass, some of those who played prominent roles for the freedom seekers and then he elaborated on the network of sites. The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom is comprised of numerous sites in 26 states and these sites commemorate the escapement or flight from oppression or a resistance to enslavement.

The escape routes did not lead only to the north. Other destinations for freedom seekers included the Caribbean, Europe, Central America, Canada and Mexico. Hill also spoke of a small town in Texas that had a link to freedom seekers who integrated themselves with a Seminole tribe from Florida that had been moved to Texas.

Hill also remorsefully told a story of freedom seekers involving his family on its South Carolina plantation. Hill’s forebearers owned slaves and a slave who was trying to escape to the North killed one of Hill’s ancestor with an axe. Eventually the slave also was killed. Hill told the story to point out that the Underground Railroad affects more people than might be anticipated at first glance.

“Of course every aspect of this is a complex story,” Hill said, “but the main thing we need to remember is that we all have the right to freedom.”

The CSC Diversity Committee brought Hill to the campus as part of its Black History Month observance.