In honor of the conclusion of Black History Month, we air parts of a documentary from Kansas State University, called Dawn of Day: Stories of the Underground Railroad [https://youtu.be/L5c6cDCTJNY?si=Asw3p9WGrBf81_Zj], produced by Dean Mercer, Directed by Rusty Earl, and narrated by the late Richard Pitts, who was Director of the Wonder Workshop in Manhattan, Kansas.

Dawn of Day is a historical documentary about the Underground Railroad in Kansas that brings to light unsung heroes who worked in secret to deliver enslaved African Americans to freedom into the free states in the north. Featured on the show today are narrator Richard Pitts, Brad Burenheide of Kansas State, Madge McDonald of the Wamego, Kansas Historical Society, and Historian Michael Stubbs, interviewed in the famed Beecher Bible and Rifle Church in Wabaunsee, Kansas.

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the "Underground Railroad.” One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.

The most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman. After escaping slavery, she made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses between Maryland and Philadelphia, and after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1950, the destination was British North America, or what we know as Canada.

John Brown was also prominent leader in the Abolitionist Movement, first reaching national prominence in the 1850s for his radical fighting in Bleeding Kansas, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state.

Brown was captured, tried, and executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia for a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today’s West Virginia) in 1859, an effort that was also assisted by Harriet Tubman.

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More Info:

https://wilderutopia.com/landscape/bleeding-kansas-and-stories-of-the-underground-railroad/

Jack Eidt is an urban planner, environmental journalist, and climate organizer, as well as award-winning fiction writer. He is Co-Founder of SoCal 350 Climate Action and Executive Producer of EcoJustice Radio. He is also Founder and Publisher of WilderUtopia [https://wilderutopia.com], a website dedicated to the question of Earth sustainability, finding society-level solutions to environmental, community, economic, transportation and energy needs.

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Executive Producer and Host: Jack Eidt

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 210

Photo credit: Kansas State University