Bike the Underground Railroad

[riverwalker]

(Just wanted to share this message.) Sounds exciting.

The entire Underground Railroad Bicycle Route is now officially complete and ready to ride. The newly-printed route maps — showing cycling-friendly roads, historical interest points, and camping and lodging options along the way — have just arrived at our Missoula headquarters and we couldn’t be more thrilled to make them available to you.

Starting in Mobile, Alabama, you can now pedal the scenic, history-steeped bicycle route for 2,058 miles clear to Owen Sound, Ontario. But, whether you embark on a day ride along the route or make a trek from start to finish, you’re sure to be in for a treat of the mind and senses.

None of this route would have been possible without the feedback, support, and on-the-ground guidance of you, our invaluable members. Though many people contributed to the creation of the Underground Railroad Route, special recognition is due to longtime member Chuck Harmon, of Dublin, Ohio, who worked tirelessly on the Ohio portion of the route.

We are also proud of our ongoing partnership with the Center for Minority Health at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. They have helped us in many ways with the route and continue to work with us to promote the route and bicycle travel in general as a healthful, enriching activity available to people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dennis Coello, our veteran photographer and writer whose story about the route will be running in an upcoming issue of Adventure Cyclist, says, “We’ve all heard the story of slaves who escaped to freedom, but here’s a chance to feel that story — and to experience a continent along the way.”

We’re inaugurating the Underground Railroad Route with a special self-contained ride along the entire route. Another way to experience the route is to join the fully supported Underground Railroad Celebration, ending with the 145th Emancipation Festival at the route’s terminus in Owen Sound, Ontario.

Also, for our Pittsburgh-area members, tune in to the “Bicycling Through Black History” television special about the route, airing on February 17 on WPXI (NBC affiliate). Check your local listings for details.

If you’d like more information on the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route, you can visit our UGRR project pages or contact Ginny Sullivan, our New Routes Coordinator, at [e-mail] or [phone], ext. 229.

But most of all—get out there and enjoy all that this route and bicycling has to offer.

See you on the road.

Adventure Cycling Association
Inspiring people of all ages to travel by bicycle.
[phone] x221 toll-free, [phone] x221 phone, [phone] fax
http://www.adventurecycling.org

[Kolesar]

1. I can leave my house and cross Ohio on prepared routes--how wonderful

A good number of John Brown's activists/army were men recruited from Ashtabula. They went to Kansas and fought in the civil war that was brewing there. Pro-slavery settlers were killed in their homes.

2005 thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=324&topic_id=792

[happyslug]

2. Look like it is using the Ohio to Erie Trail (With an extension via the Allegheny Trail)

http://www.adventurecycling.org/ugrr/index.cfm

Ohio's list of Bicycle trails:
http://www.ohiobikeways.net/index.php
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/bike/MAPList.htm

Information on the Ohio to Erie Trail:
http://www.ohiotoerietrail.org/

Subparts of the Trail:
The "Prairie Grass Trail" http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/ohioerie.htm

The Allegheny River Trail:
http://www.theneonweb.com/trails/alleghenyriver.html
http://www.avta-trails.org/
http://eagle.clarion.edu/~grads/avta/ART.html

Please note, some of the Allegheny River Trail is NOT finished, but the highway along the river is a relatively flat road to bike on to Pittsburgh (Most Traffic take "New" PA 28 which is a limited access highway further inland then the old Allegheny River Road which was old PA 28).

[Shine]

3. Wow!! My mom lived in a house in OH that was part of the Underground Railroad

it was filled with all sorts of hidden passages and doors. Very cool, and yet bittersweet to know what it was for.

Thanks very much for passing this info along, riverwalker! :hi: What a wonderful and inspiring way to learn about our country's history.

[Kolesar]

4. Law enforcement from slave states were allowed to enter peoples' homes

...and search for fugitive slaves. I think they were authorized by the "fugitive slave act", a controversial federal law that led to the Civil War.

[happyslug]

5. Only from 1850 till the Civil War (When the act was repealed)

Prior to the Fugitive Salve Act (A Federal Statute) In the South the Rule of law was any black had to prove he was NOT a slave, in the North the burden to prove a black was a slave was on the person alleging the black was a slave (The sole exception to this rule was Delaware which while a slave owning state, adopted the Northern Rule). Thus prior to 1850 once a slave arrived in a Free State, it was easy for them to blend into Society and live as a Free Black.

Now with the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, the situation changed, Blacks were presumed to be Slaves even in the North (One of the Consequences of the 1850 Act was the rapid depopulation of black communities north of the Ohio River and Mason Dixon Lines as Slave catchers went across the border and just kidnapped all the blacks in the area on the grounds they could not prove their were NOT slaves (Many had lived in the area for generations and thus did NOT have any paper work showing they had been "Freed").

Given this switch in the burden of Proof and the kidnapping of blacks all along the border between Slave and Free states, you had a huge backlash against the Fugitive Slave Act, including armed opposition (It is AFTER the Fugitive Slave act that the Underground Railroad willing started to operate, to get Slaves to Canada, for the North was no longer safe). The location of most stations of the Underground Railroad is relativity unknown south of the Ohio River, North many were well known even in the 1850s (There are all types of Cases where Northern Law Enforcement officers told escaped slaves to go to so and so before the slave catchers return with the paperwork to legally take them back).

The act also paid US Judges MORE money if they ruled someone an escaped Slave then if the Judge ruled the Black was NOT a slave. Technically this was to cover the greater costs of holding on to such an escaped lave, but the incentive to rule a black was a Slave was clear.

The Fugitive Slave Act was what lead to the development of the Republican Party, first as an Anti-Slavery Party and then a pro-business party when the Northern Whigs joined the GOP after the election of 1854 where several anti-slavery Republican on local and federal office. The Whig Party dissolved after its candidate came in third in 1856 (Behind the Democrats and the Republicans). The Whigs had came in Second in 1852, even as their man held the White house, for the Slavery issue was becoming more and more important as the decade of the 1850s went on.