American Experience
Roots of Resistance: The Story of the Underground Railroad
Directed by Orlando BagwellTV-PG
S2 • E16 Jan 15, 1990 55m6.9
Men and women, black and white, risked their lives to carve an elaborate network of escape routes out of slavery in the mid 1800s -- trails and backroads, safehouses, river crossings and night trains leading as far north as Canada. Disguises, secret rendezvous and special codes were used to guard the identity of "conductors" and their fugitive "passengers." But flight to free territory didn't guarantee freedom; fugitives could be hunted down and returned.
