Underground Railroad Workers
Underground Railroads Today Slavery is still present in the world today -- the modern name for it is human trafficking. The United Nations estimates that more than 12 million people are enslaved in forced labor and the sex industry [source: Polaris Project].
Organizations like the Polaris Project (named for the North Star that
slaves followed to freedom), the Emancipation Network and the
International Justice Mission have all been referred to as "modern
Underground Railroads" for their work in helping refugees escape human
trafficking. Their work includes community intervention, victim care
and prosecution of groups that enslave people throughout the world. In
the United States, escape routes for battered women and illegal aliens are also sometimes referred to as underground railroads. |
According to some estimates, there were about 3,200 "underground workers," nearly half of them in Ohio [source: Siebert]. But because secrecy was all-important, there was no formal or written organization. Leadership was determined by individual performance and general reputation. Most of the people involved in the Underground Railroad have been lost to history, their stories untold out of fear. And because so few written records were kept, the stories that did survive are mostly sidebars in history textbooks. There is still some social stigma today against white Southerners whose ancestors helped fugitives.
The most famous Underground Railroad conductor was Harriet Tubman, who was called "the Moses of her people." Tubman was herself an escaped slave from Maryland. When she returned South for the first time to help family escape, she discovered that her free husband had taken a new wife and was unwilling to come along. This event left her hardened, according to author Fergus M. Bordewich -- and it might explain why Tubman did not tolerate scared or upset runaways. She even threatened to kill them on occasion; it was a grim necessity when a fugitive's frightened cries could betray their location to slave hunters. This lack of sentimentality helped keep Tubman alive as she made the dangerous journey 13 more times and personally guided at least 70 slaves to freedom in New York and Canada [source: Bordewich].
