Walking the Underground Railroad…Again

From Maryland to Canada

by Tony Cohen

Statue of Harriet Tubman, "The Journey to Freedom," and Tony Cohen at Button Farm. Photo by Martin Radigan

On May 4, 1996, I embarked on an 800-mile journey to explore a largely overlooked little escape route to freedom known as the Underground Railroad. I was 32 years old, just out of college. I was ready to find my place in the world as a budding historian, when I decided to walk an underground path that I had documented for my senior thesis, from Sandy Spring, Maryland, to Canada. From my youth I had been fascinated by its cloak and dagger tales of hair’s breadth escapes, hidden rooms and false-bottom wagons. Bold liberators such as Harriet Tubman traversed my young imagination. As an adult I wanted to explore the impact of this movement on the places where it operated and passed through, so I walked 10 to 25 miles a day, visiting museums, libraries and historical sites along the way.

There I discovered that the story of freedom, with all its inherent triumphs and sacrifices, had been preserved. Its legacy was intact, memorialized and seldom forgotten by the communities the Underground Railroad travelled through. Perfect strangers responded to my mission with true underground hospitality, following my trek in the news, putting me up in their homes, feeding me and seeing me safely to my next location. School groups came out and walked with me and communities threw receptions for me, while others gave me keys to their cities. And my story was chronicled in more than a hundred newspapers, television and radio spots.

Thirty years have passed and I am preparing to make the trek again, from the same location where I began my first walk and to the date. I am 62 now—certainly older, perhaps wiser—yet itching to get back on the road. This time my goal is not to find the physical Underground Railroad trail, but more to explore its psychic terrain. In an age of seismic cultural divides and shifting social and political landscapes, I wonder: is our nation—now in its 250th year—older and wiser enough to unite and secure liberties and freedoms for all?

Part pilgrimage, part conversation, the walk is meant to provoke interactions with those we will meet along the way as the walk team and I invite people to talk about what it means to be American in this commemoration year. We will also have back-up in the form of an 8-foot-tall sculpture of Harriet Tubman, called "The Journey to Freedom," which will travel with us for the full eight weeks of our sojourn.

Our motto, “We Make the Path by Walking It,” is inspired by poet Antonio Machado, and invites participants to join the journey and help script America’s unfolding story. To learn more about the walk and find a way to participate, please visit www.menare.org.

Tony Cohen is founder of The Menare Foundation and co-founder of MoCoLMP. MoCoLMP will cover events related to the walk in future issues of the newsletter.