Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley

by Keith P. Griffler

Book Overview

The Underground Railroad, an often misunderstood antebellum institution, has been viewed as a simple combination of mainly white "conductors" and black "passengers." Keith P. Griffler takes a new, battlefield-level view of the war against American slavery as he reevaluates one of its front lines: the Ohio River, the longest commercial dividing line between slavery and freedom. In shifting the focus from the much discussed white-led "stations" to the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813130085
• ISBN13: 9780813130088
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

An exciting new look at the Underground Railroad

Even though I know better, like most people, the term "Underground Railroad" conjures the image of white folks rescuing hapless black folks. Griffler believes this is partly because historians have focused too much on the "Railroad" (with its mostly white conductors and stations) and not enough on the "Underground." Without diminishing the interracial aspects, Griffler documents how African American communities created and utilized a vast underground front-line network decades before there was much white involvement. As he states, "Even at its height the Underground Railroad did not entice African Americans to escape; rather, the loosely organized support operation was formed in response to the constant stream of fugitives." In addition to introducing black freedom fighters like John Parker (a former slave who built a prosperous business in Ripley, Ohio and worked from that base) Griffler crosschecks letters, reminiscences and oral histories against contemporary scholarship to explore the inner workings and attitudes of various participants and societies, providing a fascinating new perspective on things we thought we knew. In less skilled hands, this book could have been an unwieldy tome, but Griffler packs a wallop in a slim volume. His writing is concise, his narrative smooth, and God bless him, he never belabors a point. I easily rank this as my #1 book of the year, for general readers and academics alike.