An outgrowth of an educational program that engages young people with African American history in Illinois, The Illinois Freedom Project exhibition traces Black Illinoisans’ struggles for freedom from the French Colonial era to early-20th-century Chicago. Found in the Library's Audio Visual/Periodicals Room, this exhibition is running Jan. 3rd - Feb. 5th. The Illinois Freedom Project is touring the state in conjunction with the Smithsonian Voices and Votes: Democracy in America, also on exhibition at the Vespasian Warner Public Library.
After walking through The Illinois Freedom Project you might want to check out the following books featuring the Underground Railroad available at your Library!
The Underground Railroad in Illinois
by Glennette Tilley Turner
Uses maps, rare photographs, background information, and activities to explore the history of the underground railroad in Illinois.
Adult Non-Fiction - HIST > U.S./IL > General > TUR
A Picture of Freedom:
The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl
By Patricia C. McKissack
In 1859 twelve-year-old Clotee, a house slave who must conceal the fact that she can read and write, records in her diary her experiences and her struggle to decide whether to escape to freedom.
Juvenile Fiction - J McKissack P
Uncle Tom's Cabin
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eludes the hired slave catchers and is aided by the underground railroad. Another slave, UncleTom, is sent "down the river" for sale and ultimately endures a martyr's death under the whips of Simon Legree's overseers.
Adult Fiction - LIT > Classics > STO
Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky
by Faith Ringgold
With Harriet Tubman as her guide, Cassie retraces the steps escaping slaves took on the Underground Railroad in order to reunite with her younger brother.
Children's Picture Book - JE Ringgold F
Freedom Roads
by Joyce Hansen & Gary McGowan
The Underground Railroad was meant to be a set of secret pathways, and its traces have been obscured by time. But Joyce Hansen and Gary McGowan, who won a Coretta Scott King Honor for their previous book, show how archaeologists and historians sift through corn cobs and root cellars, study songs and quilts, and use the latest technology to reconstruct those heroic journeys.
Juvenile Non-Fiction -
J UNITED STATES History 1830 - 1865