The beginnings of America included a giant struggle between those who supported and those who opposed slavery. In the midst of this, from the 1820s through the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, 2,600 to 4,000 freedom seekers, also known as fugitive or runaway slaves, passed through northern Illinois. The networks of assistance that developed came to be called the Underground Railroad. Some of this happened in Sycamore and nearby communities and farms. Larry McCellan will look at what happened at national, state, and regional levels to understand the context for these local experiences this Thursday, April 28th at the DeKalb County Community Foundation’s Freight Room, 475 DeKalb Ave. in Sycamore at 7:00pm . This program is sponsored by the Sycamore History Museum and will cost $5 per person.
Larry is retired from Governors State University south of Chicago, where he spent many years as University Professor of Sociology and Community Studies. He helped to start the University in 1970 and has worked with historical groups and regional organizations across northern Illinois. His latest publication is the chapter “Bridging Rivers: Caroline Quarlls’ Remarkable Journey,” in A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Freedom and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland, published this Spring by Wayne State University Press.
Much of Larry’s writing has focused on African American and regional history south of Chicago. This includes 25 articles in the Encyclopedia of Chicago [2005]. Since 2006, he has presented 3 research papers on the Underground Railroad at the annual symposium of the Illinois State Historical Society. In 2010, he presented “Freedom Seekers in Illinois” at the annual National Park Service Network to Freedom conference in Topeka, and in 2014, “Women in Chicago working with the Underground Railroad” for the Network to Freedom conference in Detroit. He maintains the online materials at >illinoisundergroundrailroad.net<, and is working on a new book on Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Illinois. He and co-author Kimberly Simmons have just completed To the River: Caroline Quarlls, Freedom Seeker on the Underground Railroad, a book-length story of her life, to be published in the Fall, 2016.
This program is generously sponsored by the Mary E. Stevens Concert and Lecture fund.
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