Underground Railroad Research Paper

Words: 1534
Pages: 7

“People bring to the room what is in their hearts.” This phrase echoed through my head as I descended down the crooked and deep, slanted steps into a cold corridor. The walls brushed against my coat as I followed the tour guide to our destination. “People bring to the room what is in their hearts.”--The thought became stronger, and louder as the group filed into the small, box-like cellar room with a low ceiling. I sat down and the cold began to settle in the sleeves of my coat and slowly seep into my bones. Am I really this cold or is it something else? While the tour guide was discussing the history of the Underground Railroad in Detroit and what it was like at “midnight on Crogan street,” I reflected on the idea that history is heavily …show more content…
The lamp in the box with the gray figures with black and white swirls represents those who helped the slaves in the Underground Railroad in Detroit, the “conductors, such as Frederick Douglass and John Brown. These people, both Black and White, acted as beacons of light in the dark by guiding the running slaves to free land. Whatever was in the hearts of these men and women who sacrificed their lives for another human, indeed, have a light heart. These people such as Seymour Finney, the owner of the Finney Hotel in Detroit, and Dr. Nathan Thomas, the founder of the republican party, were crucial to the survival of the slaves who made it to the Underground Railroad in Detroit. Thanks too these distinguished people and many others, some Black people were able to leave human bondage and live a free life. This life free of chains, a realm foreign to all slaves, is the focus of one box, which has an outline of a person that is comprised of a mosaic of skin colors because in America skin color does not matter--at least according to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” According to one of the nation's’ founding documents, freedom does not discriminate. The Underground Railroad allowed slaves to transform from “slaves” to people with a little more pride and