“Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the African American Quest for Freedom” will be the topic at Dinner &amp; a Lecture at the Verdier House, 801 Bay Street, April 23 at 5:30 p.m. One of a monthly series of educational lectures sponsored by Historic Beaufort Foundation, it will be presented by historian Ron Roth and is funded by The Humanities Council SC.
The story of the Underground Railroad is one of the most epic in American History and one that played a role in Beaufort County history when abolitionist Harriet Tubman raided plantations on the Combahee River guiding slaves to freedom.
This presentation describes the heroic efforts of African Americans and whites to hide and guide runaway slaves in their desperate journeys to freedom in the north and in Canada. Highlights include first person narratives of escaping runaway slaves and their encounters with slave catchers and kidnappers; the courageous work of railroad “conductors” like Tubman; and the role of plantation slavery, African American churches and slave uprisings like the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina in generating the growth of the Underground Railroad.
Roth, the curator of the current exhibit at the Verdier House, “The Beaufort Volunteer Artillery: Guardians of the Lowcountry Since 1776,” was director and CEO of the Reading (PA) Public Museum and director of the Museum of Nebraska Art before moving to Bluffton.
Open to HBF members and non-members, the lecture series features a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception, 5:30 – 6 p.m. The program is 6 – 7 p.m. followed by audience questions. Admission to the lecture is $15/$25 per member/member couple respectively, and $20/$30 per non-member/non-member couple respectively. Seating is limited; call 379-3331 to make reservations. A three-course dinner at Saltus is offered at $19 per person for attendees at the lecture. Call Saltus directly to make dining reservations.