The common man uncommonly heroic, traveling on the Underground Railroad

The common man uncommonly heroic, traveling on the Underground Railroad

As the Reparations movement gains momentum and as African American citizens play an ever greater role in America's modern destiny, historians and preservationists are telling an aspect of the slavery story that has remained incomplete.

It's the story of the common man -- African American men, women and children -- who risked life and limb to escape the Old South through the legendary Underground Railroad system, which has an outpost near the Defender, at Quinn Chapel AME Church, 2401 S. Wabash.

Cornell University Professor Robert Harris writes that inclusion of the story of the common African American man and woman is essential to understanding the slavery disaster, and its heirs -- discrimination and segregation. He reminds us that it's been only in the past 40 years that segregation was outlawed, and with that development there has followed a shift in historical inquiry that now includes reporting the importance of African Americans' political ascendance.

A key part of that ascendance is the common man's story. It's told with the Underground Railroad as backdrop, and Bronzeville Museum Director Peggy Montes is leading the way in getting at the full story. Montes is trying to identify and preserve those 19th century homes, businesses and churches that were part of the nation's Underground Railroad.

To do so, will give us the opportunity to see for ourselves the safe places where abolitionists protected escaping African Americans heading to freedom.

Through the new Underground Railroad Association, Montes and other preservationists want to restore buildings they believe escaping slaves used as way stations. The Association also wants to affix historical markers to sites that prove to be Chicago structures that were part of a system whose role in the freedom movement was until now, obscure.

Montes, director of the Bronzeville Museum and a DuSable Museum of African-American History board member, is also investigating suburban houses she thinks may have been part of the secret escape route and its way stations.

One Underground Railroad site that has been preserved impeccably is the Owen Lovejoy Underground Railroad Station in mid-state Princeton. Only 110 miles west of the city, the Lovejoy Home was the residence of a minister friend of Abraham Lincoln's whose brother was murdered by slaveholders.

The home is a National Historic Landmark and in it are preserved artifacts and even a hiding place showing the extent to which the abolitionist and his family went to protect the common African American who demonstrated uncommon heroism in his and her escape from slavery and degradation.

The Illinois Underground Railroad Association will lead a conference at Governor's State University in University Park in October as part of a national effort to dramatize the story. It's one that will captivate Americans, we think, as the full story of the African American experience unfolds.

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