Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad

Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad highlights little-known stories and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, including the impact of African Americans’ paid and unpaid waterfront labor. Self-emancipation along the Underground Railroad was not entirely by overland routes. A great number of enslaved persons made their way to freedom using…

Read More

Secrets of Harriet Tubman’s life are being revealed 100 years later

More than a century after her death, historians are still unraveling the secrets of her life. This month the nation celebrates Harriet Tubman’s bicentennial and the fifth anniversary of the two national parks named after her. From film screenings and historical lectures to art exhibits and monument installations, here’s how you can uncover the mystery that shrouds Tubman’s life and honor the legacy of a woman who inspired generations.

Read More

Milwaukee museum pulls black people ‘out of the shadows of history’

By Sophie Bolich, Max Nawara, and Aly Prouty, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service Editor’s note: This is one of an occasional series of articles about the people and places of 53206. The museum sits behind a locked door in an inconspicuous red brick building on the corner of 27th and Center streets. To enter, visitors have to ring the…

Read More

How Does a City Choose to Remember its Past?

Many Milwaukeeans are familiar with the 1854 abolitionist rescue of Joshua Glover, an African American who escaped slavery and found sanctuary in Wisconsin. Far fewer know about the horrific racial lynching of George Marshall Clark, a free black man, that happened only seven years later in Milwaukee. What was their story, and how have we remembered these two men?

Read More