# data[].attributes.headline
Oral Traditions and the UGRR Lesson Plan

# data[].attributes.subject
Oral Traditions and the UGRR Lesson Plan

# data[].attributes.body
For student materials and answer keys, contact me at rharris@ecusd7.org for access.

# data[].attributes.body
The National Park Service's Underground Railroad website which identifies historic sites. In addition, it includes lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1998, legislation titled the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998 was passed, creating the Network to Freedom program. This program honors, preserves and promotes the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, which continues to inspire people worldwide. Through its mission, the Network to Freedom helps to advance the idea that all human beings embrace the right to self-determination and freedom from oppression.

The program is a catalyst for innovation, partnerships, and scholarship connecting the diverse legacy of the Underground Railroad across boundaries and generations. The program consists of sites, programs, and facilities with a verifiable connection to the Underground Railroad. There are currently over 700 Network to Freedom locations in 39 states, plus Washington D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada.

We are currently in the process of transitioning information from our former Network to Freedom website. For updated NTF news and events, please visit: Underground Railroad (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov) We thank you for your patience. If you have a question or concern, please email network_to_freedom@nps.gov.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Network to Freedom (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1998, legislation titled the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998 was passed, creating the Network to Freedom program. This program honors, preserves and promotes the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, which continues to inspire people worldwide.

# data[].attributes.body
A historical overview of the Underground Railroad in Madison County, Illinois.

# data[].attributes.body
A collection of primary source documents such as speeches, letters, and articles from prominent Black abolitionists.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation and Freedom - CURIOSity Digital Collections

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lauren Anderson, Harvard College Class of 2021, Social Studies
On March 16, 1827, the Black abolitionists Reverend Samuel E. Cornish and John Brown Russwurm set out on a task: "to plead our own cause." This phrase became the opening statement of Freedom's Journal, an abolitionist newspaper owned by the two publishers. Freedom's Journal provided an outlet for Black authors to insert their voices into a print and literary community largely occupied by White voices, among them editor of the United States first abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator, Elihu Embree and prominent anti-slavery activist William Lloyd Garrison.

As the first Black-owned abolitionist newspaper, Freedom's Journal and its authors signaled the entrance of Black voices and political ideas into American civic discourse. Inserting their calls for abolition into a growing print news industry, the authors of Freedom's Journal, alongside other Black abolitionists, thinkers, writers, creatives, and artists, fashioned their collective voices into a public, a group that "sets its boundaries and its organization by its own discourse" to achieve some political end, as noted by literary critic and social theorist Michael Warner. Through narrating and illustrating their cause for abolition, Black writers and artists asserted themselves into a public body, one whose entrance into civic life permanently marked American political culture.

This essay highlights the literary and artistic movements pioneered by Black abolitionists from 1780 until the Civil War's end in 1865. Until the 1960s and 1970s, much scholarly work on abolition retold this history from the perspective of those not directly affected by slavery's ills. Building on a recent scholarly consensus towards examining the ideas, lives, and work of Black abolitionists, this essay recounts how Black leaders throughout the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century used print news, visual art, and music to establish their own political culture. Incorporating newly digitized primary sources from Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, and Freedom, this essay encourages scholars, students, and the public alike to consider how Black leaders shaped abolition into a political and social cause of their own.

Black Voices in News and Print

Four years before William Lloyd Garrison published the first edition of his seminal newspaper, The Liberator, Black authors had already looked to print media as a means of achieving emancipation. While abolitionists like Garrison played a considerable role in galvanizing support for emancipation among White audiences, to decenter the importance of Black authors and artists in the struggle for abolition is to narrate an incomplete story of antebellum America.

Black newspapers enabled the free expression of Black community leaders, political thinkers, and artists, forging a site in which Blacks simultaneously argued their cause for abolition while showcasing literary talents. In addition to providing a home for political discourse, Freedom's Journal showcased poetry written by cultural titans like Phillis Wheatley alongside religious sermons and transcriptions of public orations.

Freedom's Journal ceased publication in 1829, coinciding with Cornish and Russwurm's ideological split over colonization, an idea popular throughout the abolition movement that sought the return of free Blacks to Africa. Although no longer an active publication, the newspaper's influence continued through the Black writers it had cultivated. In the same year, David Walker, a former writer and subscription sales agent for Freedom's Journal, published his seminal An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in Boston, Massachusetts. Walker's Appeal was a fiery attack on slavery and a radical call for immediate abolition. Printed as a pamphlet, the Appeal was widely circulated throughout the United States, prompting unfavorable reactions in southern states. For example, North Carolina's state legislature levied harsh punishments to anyone who circulated the "seditious" pamphlet, while South Carolina's governor asked his Massachusetts counterpart to jail Walker.

Multiple Editions of Walker's Appeal

David Walker's landmark pamphlet was published in three editions, including a posthumous 1830 publication. Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, and Freedom includes three different copies, some of which include the responses of Walker's contemporary readers in the margins.

The text of Walker's Appeal models the body of the United States Constitution and invokes political ideals found in the Declaration of Independence, forging a critique of America's limited democracy. The pamphlet begins with a preamble, while the body is structured in four articles. Such a rhetorical design facilitates Walker's examination of the American legal protections Blacks were excluded from. His critique of American democratic principles is further grounded in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century laws that prevented Black people from literacy, effectively prohibiting their participation in a political society established from written texts and constitutions. Walker asks that all "coloured men, women, and children... procure a copy of this Appeal and read it," rebelling against nineteenth-century slave codes. While he critiques the prohibition of Black literacy, Walker simultaneously creates space for Blacks to enter into a culture of texts, discourse, and civic dialogue.

In the years preceding the Civil War, print remained key in cultivating a Black public that advocated emancipation of its own people. From 1847 to 1851, Frederick Douglass published The North Star, an anti-slavery magazine that promoted the "moral and intellectual advancement of colored people." In 1859 brothers and abolitionists Thomas Hamilton and Robert Hamilton founded The Anglo-African Magazine. The brothers spent their childhood surrounded by abolitionist discourse; their father, William Hamilton, was an orator who both praised and criticized the placating tactics of White abolitionist newspapers like The Liberator.

The Anglo-African Magazine took a bolder approach in its call for abolition in the United States and the liberation of Blacks across the world. The magazine was radical. Its motto proclaimed that "Man must be free; if not within the law, why then, above the law." The magazine's content matched its powerful ambition. The Anglo-African Magazine reported on slave revolts led by enslaved people in the United States and abroad, forging a narrative in favor of transnational Black liberation. The magazine also used religious language, mirroring the growth of Black theology throughout the nineteenth century. References to God and Christianity are recurrent, crafting a moral imperative for rebellion against slavery.

Print Image and Fine Art: A Vision for Emancipation

Images accompanied several texts circulated in both White and Black owned abolitionist publications. Photography became a tool of political rhetoric, one with the potential to shape and challenge Americans attitudes on abolition. Between 1780 and 1865, White abolitionists used photographs and reproducible print images to illustrate their cause and generate sympathy for the plight of enslaved people. Images used by White abolitionists highlighted slavery's brutality by depicting its violence. A widely circulated example is the "Kneeling Slave,'' first printed in 1837. The print features an enslaved person on their knees, looking upward and pleading to the presumably White reader, "am I not a man and a brother?" Although calling for abolition, the enslaved person is undermined; they are not shown as a full human, but as a subjugated person.

Images that depict the violence faced by enslaved people were also used by White abolitionists. The image "Whipped Peter" was widely circulated in an 1863 edition of the White abolitionist newspaper Harper's Weekly by White abolitionists to show slavery's inhumanity. The photograph captures the back of an enslaved man, scarred by whippings. Although intended to bolster the abolitionist's cause, "Whipped Peter's" circulation continues to show an enslaved person as someone in need of salvation, not someone with the agency to realize their own emancipation.

Black abolitionists, in contrast, used photography to control their stories and images. This strategy is epitomized by Frederick Douglass' daguerreotypes. In his lifetime, Douglass sat for more than one hundred and sixty daguerreotype portraits, citing photography's ability to reclaim identity. The daguerreotype, Douglass believed, would provide Black people the opportunity to forge their civic identities and control their perception by Whites; he envisioned a country in which "photography, painting, poetry, and music" could facilitate emancipation. This belief is reflected in his portraits. In one example, Douglas sits upright and is dressed in a suit. Looking directly at the viewer, he asserts his position as someone poised to engage in civic dialogue and discourse. His portrait is a powerful contrast to White abolitionists' depiction of the Blacks as a subjugated object in need of help. Douglass does not show himself as a victim, but rather as a refined, dignified, and autonomous man.

Black abolitionists' visual call for emancipation was not limited to mass circulated and reproducible images. In the fine arts, Black artists inserted their vision for abolition. Edmonia Lewis, one of the first professional Black sculptors, portrayed contemporary abolitionists using the styles and techniques of academic culture. Within the Houghton's SAEF collection are newly digitized texts on Lewis' life and work, including this short biography titled How Edmonia Lewis Became an Artist.

Lewis produced medallion portraits of well-known White abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips. At the height of the Civil War, Lewis sculpted a bust of Colonel Robert Shaw, a white officer who commanded the 54th Massachusetts Infantry composed of Black soldiers, memorializing him in America's cultural lexicon. Her 1867 sculpture, "Forever Free," celebrates the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War. A newly freed man stands upright, liberated, while a freedwoman crouches on her knees adjacent to him. Although the woman still kneels, a trope found throughout White abolitionist images, art historians like Kirsten P. Buick have provided an alternative interpretation, instead arguing that the kneeling woman represents the new possibility of marriage and family life for freed Blacks that was denied under slavery.

Music and Abolition

Just as visual art allowed Black abolitionists to assert their own image and presence, music was a significant actor in the abolitionist movement. Since the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, song had been used to communicate across the disparate languages and cultures enslaved Africans originated from. Throughout enslavement, lyrics were used by enslaved people to subvert the authority of masters, forming a hidden transcript intelligible to only the enslaved. This can be seen in the transcriptions of Gullah-Geechee music made by Thomas Wentworth Higginson during the Civil War, and in Slave Songs of the United States, the first published book of African American spirituals. By the mid nineteenth century, music became an agent of abolition.

Don't You Hear the Trumpet Roar?

Thomas Wentworth Higginson would eventually publish his transcriptions of Gullah-Geechee spirituals in his book Army Life in a Black Regiment. Thoughinterpreted through Higginson's perspective, these songs show the freedom-oriented theology of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black people.

Contained in the SAEF collection is The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings. Published in 1848, The Anti-Slavery Harp is a collection of abolitionist lyrics compiled and edited by William W. Brown, who describes himself in the songbook's introductory pages as a fugitive slave. The songbook consists of forty-eight lyrics, most set to the tune of popular songs like "Dandy Jim," a minstrel favorite, or Auld Lang Syne. Most lyrics in the book were written by abolitionists, not enslaved or freed Blacks. Brown, however, is believed to have written two of the lyrics: "A Song for Freedom" and "Fling Out the Anti-Slavery Flag." Noteworthy is English scholar John Ernest's suggestion that Brown's compilation of The Anti-Slavery Harp forged Brown into a "cultural editor," compiling different songs and disparate narratives into a larger body of work that reveals the ideas and dialogues on slavery and abolition in antebellum America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lauren Anderson, Harvard College Class of 2021, Social Studies On March 16, 1827, the Black abolitionists Reverend Samuel E. Cornish and John Brown Russwurm set out on a task: "to plead our own cause." This phrase became the opening statement of Freedom's Journal, an abolitionist newspaper owned by the two publishers.

# data[].attributes.body
Held in Alton, Illinois, this website provides lesson plans and access to primary sources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Interior of Corinthian Hall, 1851
An 1851 engraving of Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y., where the National Colored Convention was held in July of 1853. (Source: Illustrated American supplement, by T.W. Strong. Sep. 1851, Rochester Public Library Local History Division picture file. Courtesy of Rochester Public Library, Monroe County Library System.)

This was a somber and frightening time for Black northerners. Many doubted that progress on issues of slavery and race was possible. Frederick Douglass agreed with Wagoner and called for a national convention to meet in Rochester on July 6-8, 1853. Jones, Wagoner, Rev. Byrd Parker , and James D. Bonner comprised the Illinois delegation to the Rochester convention.

At the convention, delegates were united in their commitment to fighting for free and enslaved Black people, but they disagreed about how to meet their goals. The topics of white-sponsored colonization and Black voluntary emigration proved especially contentious, foreshadowing debates at the Illinois state convention that fall. Discussions also touched on topics that resonated with the experiences of Black Illinoisans. In an "Address to the People of the United States," leaders of the convention denounced "oppressive laws... which aim[ed] at the expatriation of free people of color."

Despite the vehement debate, the national convention's statement to the American people unequivocally claimed African Americans' status as American citizens and proclaimed their right to protection from the government of the land of their birth. Jones, Parker, Wagoner and Bonner left Rochester ready to apply all they had seen and heard to the fight for Black rights and dignity back in Illinois.

Credits

Written by Mikala Stokes and Marquis Taylor. Edited by Kate Masur.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Prelude to the Convention - Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Interior of Corinthian Hall, 1851 An 1851 engraving of Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y., where the National Colored Convention was held in July of 1853. (Source: Illustrated American supplement, by T.W. Strong. Sep. 1851, Rochester Public Library Local History Division picture file. Courtesy of Rochester Public Library, Monroe County Library System.)

# data[].attributes.body
The Illinois Anti-Slavery Society was formed here in October of 1837 and is located across the street from the College Avenue Presbyterian Church.

# data[].attributes.body
Elijah P. Lovejoy was the first pastor of the Upper Alton Presbyterian church, known now as College Avenue Presbyterian is located at 1702 Clawson St in Alton, Illinois.

# data[].attributes.body
The Union Baptist Church was instrumental in providing resources to those Freedom Seekers and the church of James Henry Johnson.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

# data[].attributes.body
An overview of the Abolitionist movement, focusing on its goals, key figures, and historical context.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From the 1820s until the start of the U.S. Civil War, abolitionists called on the federal government to prohibit the ownership of people in the Southern states.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
John Jones to serve in the newly formed State Repeal Association as commissioner for the southern portion of the state. The Repeal Association's aim was to persuade the state legislature to eliminate the state's racist laws and to "obtain for the colored people of Illinois all the rights and immunities of citizenship" by "holding public meetings, delivering lectures and circulating petitions."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
James Henry Johnson - Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
John Jones to serve in the newly formed State Repeal Association as commissioner for the southern portion of the state. The Repeal Association's aim was to persuade the state legislature to eliminate the state's racist laws and to "obtain for the colored people of Illinois all the rights and immunities of citizenship" by "holding public meetings, delivering lectures and circulating petitions."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Jones fought the Illinois black laws for two decades. In 1848 he traveled to the national Black convention that met in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was named vice president. It is there that he may have first encountered Frederick Douglass, who presided over the convention and later referred to Jones as an "old friend." When Jones returned to Chicago, he joined with Henry O. Wagoner

Rather than repeal the laws, the state legislature intensified them. In spring 1853, after the legislature had adopted a , Jones was among those who called for a statewide Black convention. That summer, newly repressive law that sought to ban Black migration into the state -together with Rev. Byrd ParkerJones traveled to Buffalo, New York, for a national Black convention that their protests had helped prompt. Wagoner

Yet Illinois legislators remained intransigent into the 1860s. Toward the end of 1864, with the Republicans in power, the political winds had finally shifted. That November, Jones published a pamphlet entitled The Black Laws of Illinois and a Few Reasons Why They Should Be Repealed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
John Jones - Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jones fought the Illinois black laws for two decades. In 1848 he traveled to the national Black convention that met in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was named vice president. It is there that he may have first encountered Frederick Douglass, who presided over the convention and later referred to Jones as an "old friend."

# data[].attributes.body
Learn about Harriet Tubman’s role in the Underground Railroad and the Abolitionist movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
NATIONAL ABOLITION HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802-1837), a native of Albion, Maine, was murdered in Alton, Illinois by a pro-slavery mob on November 7, 1837 while defending his right to promote the abolition of slavery in...

# data[].attributes.body
The geographic location of Illinois bordering the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri created an inhospitable environment for Blacks traveling in Illinois, but it did not deter those from seeking their freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Madison County, Illinois was one such place where those who sought freedom found help from local white and Black abolitionists living in communities such as Alton, Godfrey, Brighton, Wood River, Maryville, and Alhambra.

This lesson will focus on the use of oral tradition in uncovering the efforts of those enslaved persons to gain freedom, those who helped them, and how available historical documents can support these narratives.  Students will examine selected local records of Madison County, Illinois to aid their understanding of the importance of oral tradition in studying history and acknowledging the bravery of less famous people associated with the Underground Railroad.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Johnson family reunion at Oak Leaf Farm in 1904. Matriarch Eleanor Madden Johnson is seated in the middle row at the far right, wearing a bonnet. From the Madison County Historical Society

# data[].attributes.body
Information about the legacy started by James Henry Johnson and his role in the Underground Railroad. (A Sesquicentennial Farm – Madison County Historical Society (madcohistory.org))

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Edward Coles, 2nd governor of Illinois and Abolitionist

# data[].attributes.body
Edward Coles, private secretary of James Madison, the second governor of Illinois, a friend of Thomas Jefferson, and abolitionist. He wrote to Thomas Jefferson several times asking him to support gradual emancipation. He was put on trial for the manumission of those enslaved people who traveled with him from Virginia. Edward Coles | Monticello

# data[].attributes.body
Edward Coles wrote to Thomas Jefferson urging him to support gradual emancipation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Founders Online: Edward Coles to Thomas Jefferson, 31 July 1814

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edward Coles to Thomas Jefferson, 31 July 1814

# data[].attributes.body
The location of the Rocky Fork Settlement is now Camp Warren Levis, a Boy Scout Camp.

# data[].attributes.body
This bookstore located on E. Broadway is known to be a site of the Underground Railroad.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Contested Site of the Underground Railroad

# data[].attributes.body
The Enos Apartments has been featured in numerous newspaper articles and oral traditions as a site of the Underground Railroad. In recent years, scholars have begun to question the validity of these claims.

# data[].attributes.body
To learn more about the history of the church see the following website: Early African American Churches in Madison County – Madison County Historical Society (madcohistory.org)

# data[].attributes.body
Lyman Trumbull was a resident of Alton and author of the 13th Amendment. For more information see the following website: Trumbull, Lyman | House Divided (dickinson.edu)

# data[].attributes.body
The Lyman Trumbull house is located at 1105 Henry Street in Alton, Illinois.

Lyman Trumbull House | Great Rivers & Routes (riversandroutes.com)

# data[].attributes.body
The monument is located at 1511 Lewis Road, Edwardsville, Illinois.

# data[].attributes.body
Edward Coles was sued by Madison County and forced to pay a fine for the manumitting of enslaved people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In January 1824, Coles received a summons to the Circuit Court of Madison County. The County Commissioners had entered a plea of debt against Coles to the tune of $2,000. Citing Section 3 of the 1819 Illinois "Black Code," the complaint alleged Coles failed to give the required bond of $1,000 for each of the ten slaves he freed who made a home in Illinois. He therefore owed a penalty of $200 for each person freed.

The Illinois Black Code explicitly sought to discourage people from coming to Illinois for the purpose of freeing slaves. The bond requirement made emancipators responsible for ensuring that freed people would not become a financial drain on the state. The Black Code became law on March 20, 1819. Coles and the people he planned to manumit left Virginia for Illinois just two days later.

The Commissioners' complaint against Coles described the ten people he had failed to bond in 1819: Ralph and Kate Crawford and their four children; Ralph Crawford's siblings, Robert and Polly; Thomas Cobb; and Nancy Gains.

The case went to trial. Judge John Reynolds presided. James Turney represented the plaintiffs; Starr and Lockwood defended Coles. In September of 1824, a jury found in favor of the County Commissioners. In fact, John Howard, one of the plaintiffs, acted as the jury foreman. The court ordered Coles to pay $2,000.

Coles requested a retrial. In the meantime, Illinois residents had decided the fate of slavery in Illinois: the conventionists hoping to legalize slavery had been defeated the month before the verdict. On January 3, 1825, the Illinois General Assembly passed a law absolving violators of Section 3 of the Black Code from penalties. The Supreme Court of Illinois ruled in favor of Coles on appeal.

Footnotes

¹None of the ten people Coles manumitted had become financial dependents of the county in the five years since 1819 when they had gained their freedom (see Life in Illinois in this online exhibition). But in 1824, pro-slavery Illinoisans sought to force a constitutional convention and legalize slavery in the state. The conventionists used the legal battle to undermine Coles' reputation and distract his attention and financial resources from fighting to prevent the convention.

² The Illinois Black Code wasn't repealed in full until 1865. John Jones, a wealthy freeborn black abolitionist, led the repeal effort.

# data[].attributes.body
Video and history about various sites of the Underground Railroad in Illinois

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Underground Railroad in Illinois | Illinois Public Media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Illinois, with its proximity to Missouri and Kentucky which were slave states, played a significant role in facilitating escapes through the Underground Railroad.

# data[].attributes.body
Use this PowerPoint to discuss how we remember important people and places from history.

# data[].attributes.headline
Podcast about Untold Black Stories in Alton

# data[].attributes.subject
Podcast about Untold Black Stories in Alton

# data[].attributes.body
Local public historian and former teacher of the Alton Public School District speaks of the importance of Black History in the Alton Area.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alton is one of the most historically significant towns in Illinois and it has national importance. Part of that significance is its place in AFRICAN AMERICAN history, which is to say American history. Please see: https://mythicmississippi.illinois.edu/alton/ Alton was a major abolitionist center in the decades before the Civil War. Elijah Lovejoy was martyred here for his anti-slavery advocacy. Alton played a major role in the Underground Railroad (and the adjacent town of Godfrey where Rocky Fork is located). Alton was the site of the final Lincoln-Douglas debate. Alton has both a National Military Cemetery (created originally for the Union soldiers) and a Confederate Cemetery. From 1849-1863 it was the home of Lyman Trumbull, the U.S. Senator who co-authored the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery. The Scott Bibb School Case (1897-1908) challenged education segregation in Alton. Jazz legend Miles Davis was born in Alton (1926). An African American neighborhood called (confusingly) Mexico is vibrant. Please listen to Stephanie Young's podcast, All Town USA, Episode 5/Parts 1 and 2, to learn about this: https://alltownusa.org A fascinating series of articles about the African American history and heritage of Alton is now being written by Charlotte Johnson and Renée Johnson for the Great Rivers & Routes website. We are pleased to feature them here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alton is one of the most historically significant towns in Illinois and it has national importance. Part of that significance is its place in AFRICAN AMERICAN history, which is to say American history. Please see: https://mythicmississippi.illinois.edu/alton/ Alton was a major abolitionist center in the decades before the Civil War.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the late 1700s, when what is now Illinois became part of the Northwest Territory, slavery was prohibited. However, current owners were allowed to keep people in bondage. From shortly after statehood until the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, Illinois enacted numerous laws, known as the Black Codes. These laws placed restrictions on the lives of freemen and allowed the continuation of slavery throughout the state. Under these laws, free Blacks could not vote, own or carry firearms, gather in groups of more than three, or sue a white person. They were required to have freedom certificates at all times or were assumed to be escaped slaves. As such, they were subject to arrest, fines, and sale. Later laws required immediate registration and the payment of a cash bond when entering a county. By 1829, that bond was $1,000 per person, the equivalent of $24,000 to $28,000 today. These laws also allowed for slave-hunting and the return of escapees to bondage. They created an extreme indenture period allowing slaves to be brought into the state and classified as "indentured servants" without an actual change in their circumstances.

Even with the Black Codes in place, people of African ancestry built homes, businesses, and communities across the state. Many of the stories regarding people of African ancestry in what is now Southwestern Illinois begin with enslavement. Many: not all. Written into the landscape of the region are countless instances of how those enslaved, freedom-seeking, free-born, and their descendants have shaped the communities we share today. By teasing apart family stories, church histories, and vague recollections, one may begin to build a list of questions. Searching in probate and land record; newspapers and city directories; cemetery and military logs: and other formal documents bring to light the names, circumstances, and contributions of these people.

Join us as we journey through time and across the region to consider these people. Our guides for this journey are Charlotte E. Johnson, a local historian, and her daughter, Renee B. Johnson, author of Alton ABC. Mrs. Johnson has long collected and researched the stories of Illinois. Her work has resulted in numerous family revelations, museum holdings and exhibits, presentations, and listings on both The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and the National Register of Historic Places. Ms. Johnson shares her mother's interest in history and genealogy, supporting the effort to tell the true story of people and their lives. Through a joint project with the Hayner Genealogy and Local History Library and the Alton High School Graphics department, Ms. Johnson worked with a group of students in 2019 to create a children's picture book that highlights people, places, and history, Alton ABC.

As we journey, we trust that you will consider your Southwestern Illinois story and how it intertwines with those we present. We challenge you to seek out those connections, to tease apart the recollections of your forbearers, and bring to light the stories of you, yours, and our communities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
JOIN US ON A JOURNEY THROUGH BLACK HISTORY IN SOUTHWEST ILLINOIS | Great Rivers & Routes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Though Illinois was admitted to the union as a free state in 1818, it was not nor had it been a welcoming place for those of African ancestry.

# data[].attributes.body
A document of selected family histories of the Rock Fork Settlement.