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November 2014 Volume 10, Number 51

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November 2014 Volume 10, Number 51 November 2014 Volume 10, number 51 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREE PRESS® Independent reporting on today’s Underground Railroad urrFreePress.com 2014 Peace Nobel Awarded for Work Freeing Children from Slavery In This Issue Freedom from child labor and to an education are recognized by a Nobel Prize. 1 A small town saves an almost forgot- ten historic church. 1 Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai For their work speaking out against Says Satyarthi, "Everyone must ac- An Academy Award winner lends a the slavery and exploitation of chil- knowledge and see that child slavery strong voice to historic preservation. dren, Indian social organizer Kailash still exists in the world in its ugliest Satyarthi and Pakistani schoolgirl face and form. And this crime against Malala Yousafzai were named as the humanity is intolerable, unacceptable 2 recipients of the 2014 Nobel Peace and must go." Prize. The Nobel Prizes for peace, An Underground Railroad book wins economics, medicine, literature, phys- By far the youngest Nobelist ever, Malala Yousafzai, 17, has become a a national book prize. ics and chemistry will be presented legend in her own time. As an eleven on December 10 in Oslo, Norway. year old, she began speaking out 2 By naming the two, the Nobel Com- against Taliban restrictions on educa- mittee honors age and youth, Hindu tion of girls in Pakistan's remote Swat Anthony Cohen, descendant of two and Muslim, Indian and Pakistani, Valley where she lived. By the next Underground Railroad freedom seek- and male and female, all taken to- year when she became a regular ers, again walks the path of one. gether a stroke for peace in itself. blogger for the Urdu edition of the 2 British Broadcasting Corporation, the Mr. Satyarthi, 60, educated as an elec- Taliban had destroyed more than a trical engineer, left his college teach- hundred girls schools in the region. After 150 years, Tennessee is far ing post in 1980 to found the Save the overdue in labeling an unconscion- Childhood Mission. Tirelessly argu- On October 9, 2012, when she was fif- able Civil War massacre for what it ing that child labor perpetuates pov- teen, a Taliban gunman boarded the was. erty, unemployment, illiteracy, popu- youngster's school bus and shot her 3 lation growth and other social ills, he in the head. After regaining con- has done as much as anyone to show sciousness in a hospital in Britain a child labor as a human rights issue. Please see Nobel, page 4, column 3 Tolson's Chapel One of an occasional series on Underground Railroad and related sites After its congregation disbanded in 1998, Tol- pleted by the Friends group in 2014. son's Chapel sat deteriorating on a back street of rural Sharpsburg, Maryland, until local his- Tolson's Chapel dates from 1866 and served as torian Edie Wallace did something about it. an African Methodist Episcopal church until 1998. It was also used as the American Union Creating a nonprofit, mustering local interest School for African American children from and launching a fund drive worked. In 2002, 1868 until 1899. The church is named for its the nearby Save Historic Antietam Foundation founder and first pastor, John R. Tolson, a became the chapel's owner and in 2008 former slave from Virginia. deeded it to Friends of Tolson Chapel which Wallace had founded. Renovation was com- Visit tolsonschapel.org for more. Tolson's Chapel Underground Railroad Free Press 2 Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong'o and the National Trust for Historic Preservation Fight to Save Richmond's Historic Shockoe Bottom Shockoe Bottom, the oldest neighborhood in league baseball stadium would be built in Richmond, Virginia, was once a bustling center Shockoe Bottom, literally burying most of the of the slave-trade. By some estimates, more remainder of the neighborhood's history. 300,000 men, women and children were bought Said National Trust for Historic Preservation and sold in the Bottom and shipped throughout president Stephanie Meeks in launching a cam- the Deep South. Solomon Northup whose life paign to save the neighborhood, "We see was depicted in the Oscar-winning film 12 Years Shockoe Bottom as not just a state of Virginia a Slave was held in a Shockoe Bottom jail before treasure, but a national treasure. Much of what being sold south. was there has been destroyed and what is there Today much of the historic neighborhood is be- is buried. We'd like to have a comprehensive ar- ing torn down and gentrified, its nineteenth cen- chaeological exploration of this site." tury tobacco warehouses converted to town- Meeks enlisted the assistance of Lupita Nyong'o houses, and many of its open areas now paved whose portrayal of Patsey in 12 Years a Slave over into parking lots. The last straw came when won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Support- Lupita Nyong'o the City of Richmond announced that a minor Please see Richmond, page 4, column 1 Underground Railroad Novel Wins Prize For Tony Cohen, Ano- Ann Heinz's Last Stop Freedom, an Under- ground Railroad suspense thriller, has ther Historic Trek been awarded the Dragonfly E-book Award for Historical Fiction. Amazon's review describes Last Stop Free- dom's story line as, "A desperate flight from brutal oppression—and everything to lose if it fails. Two women, one white, the other black, find themselves trapped 100th Anniversary in bondage on a South Carolina planta- tion in 1850s America. Their unique friendship gives each the strength to en- dure until circumstances threaten not only to rip them apart but to place their very lives in jeopardy. They undertake a harrowing flight with the aid of the Un- derground Railroad. Will slavery’s pow- erful tentacles hold them? Or will they Ann Heinz Anthony Cohen find the freedom they crave." what is expected of her, and with what As this issue of Free Press reaches you, she knows is the right thing to do. With a Underground Railroad pioneer Anthony Writes reviewer Wendy Thomas, "Julia quick pace and nice use of credible dia- Cohen is beginning his historic walk from agrees to marry Nathaniel Hamilton, a logue, Heinz brings us along as Julia, Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, retracing plantation owner in South Carolina but who had only wanted to be out in the the footsteps of his great-great grand un- this just moves her from one house of re- world to have adventure and escape her cle Patrick Sneed who had fled from slav- pression to another. Her only source of father's rule, matures into a young ery in Savannah along the Underground comfort becomes Fanny, the black slave woman of strength who becomes com- Railroad to freedom in Canada in 1849. in the house who listens to her and gives mitted to a cause that, although not During the Civil War, Sneed joined the her emotional strength. When Nathaniel popular and dangerous for all involved, Union Army cavalry and in 1864 rode threatens to sell Fanny, Julia must step up is the absolute right thing to do. with Union Army General William and make some decisions in order to take Sherman in his March to the Sea. back control over her life. "Heinz is an accomplished and prolific writer who does a wonderful job of Cohen says that he will travel by foot, "What follows is an intriguing story of bringing us along to watch Julia's awak- boat, rail, horseback and other nine- cultures and morals clashing—North vs. teenth-century conveyances as he makes ening as she moves from being the child South, men vs. women, black vs. white, the 250-mile journey. He plans stops in of her father to becoming the strong, in- religion vs. free will. Heinz does wonder- dependent woman she is capable of be- key communities along the way that fig- fully in weaving these points of view into ing." ure into his family story, and expects his a solid story filled with beautiful imagery journey to be complete by November 30. and accurate history. Heinz deftly shows Ann Heinz has also authored Will Thou His reprise of his relative's march is noth- us the inner turmoil of her main character Be Mine, Final Victim, Free Fall, and Ex- as Julia struggles with what is allowed, treme Influence. Please see Third Walk, page 4, column 3 Underground Railroad Free Press 3 Editorial: A National Disgrace Whitewashed This article by Free Press publisher Peter H. Nathan Forrest had been a plantation those killed in the battle; from the lengths of Michael appears as a chapter in his owner and slave trader, and afterward the three lists—one hundred sixty-four Un- forthcoming Running on Empty: Along an became a founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Epic 12,000-Mile Road Trip, America Has ion blacks, sixty-four Union whites, fifteen Its Say on Economic Inequality, due for After Reconstruction ended, town after Confederates—the visitor can begin to get an publication in 2015. southern town erected statues of Forrest idea of what happened. Another display tip- or memorialized him in other ways. toes toward candor by mentioning "the con- troversy" of the numbers killed by race and Day 64- Between trips, our friend Fergus Bordewich's article and a later exchange Bordewich happened to email me about of emails left the impression that the Please see Cover-up, page 4, column 1 his op-ed piece appearing in The Wall Tennessee Department of Parks which Street Journal. The subject was the 150th operates Fort Pillow State Park could do anniversary of the Civil War massacre at more in its portrayal of the Battle of Fort things you can Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on April 12, Pillow to recognize the historical fact 1864, when 1,500 Confederates over- that a massacre had taken place.
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