[00:00.00] In 2004 a center in honor of the "underground railroad" opens in Cincinnati.The railroad was unususl.
[00:09.25]It sold no tickets and had no trains.Yet it carried thousands of passengers to the destination of their dreams.
[00:18.68]THE FREEDOM GIVERS’ By Ferqus M. Bordewich
[00:24.53]A gentle breeze swept the Canadian plains as I stepped outside the small two-story house.
[00:32.78]Alongside me was a slender woman in a black dress,my guide back to a time when the surrounding settlement in Dresden,
[00:43.36]Ontario,was home to a hero in American history.As we walked toward a plain gray church.
[00:52.48]Barbara Carter spoken proudly of her great-great-grand-father,Josiah Henson.
[01:00.45]"He was confident that the Creator intended all men to be created equal.And he never gave up struggling for that freedom."
[01:10.69]2 Carter's devotion to her ancestor is about more than personal pride:it is about family honor.
[01:20.43]For Josiah Henson has lived on through the character in American fiction that he helped inspire:Uncle Tom,
[01:30.51]the long-suffering slave in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
[01:36.73]Ironically,that character has come to symbolize everything Henson was not.A racial sell out unwilling to stand up for himself?
[01:47.81]Carter gets angry at the thought."Josiah Henson was a man of principle,"she said firmly.
[01:56.22]3I had traveled here to Henson's last home-now a historic site that Carter formerly directed-to learn more about a man who was,
[02:08.08]in many ways an African-American Moses.After winning his own freedom from slavery,
[02:16.15]Henson secretly helped hundreds of other slaves to escape north to Canada--and liberty.Many settled here in Dresden with him.
[02:27.64]4 Yet this stop was only part of a much larger mission for me.
[02:33.84]Josiah Henson is but one name on a long list of courageous men and women who together forged the Underground Railroad,
[02:44.47]a secret web of escape routes and safe houses that they used to liberate slaves from the American South.
[02:53.48]Between1820 and1860,as many as100,000 slaves traveled the Railroad to freedom.
[03:03.22]5 In October 2000, President Clinton authorized$16 million for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
[03:14.43]to honor this first great civil-rights struggle in the U.S.The center is scheduled to open in 2004 in Cincinnati.And it's about time.
[03:27.60]For the heroes of the Underground Railroad remain too little remembered,their exploits still largely unsung.
[03:37.50]I was intent on telling their stories.
[03:41.91]6 John Parker tensed when he heard the soft knock.Peering out his door into the night,
[03:49.49]he recognized the face of a trusted neighbor."There's a party of escaped slaves hiding in the woods in Kentucky,
[03:58.42]twenty miles from the river,"the man whispered urgently.
[04:03.28]Parker didn't hesitate."I'll go,"he said,pushing a pair of pistols into his pockets.
[04:11.61]7 Born a slave two decades before,in the 1820s,
[04:17.23]Parker had been taken from his mother at age eight and forced to walk in chains from Virginia to Alabama,
[04:26.37]where he was sold on the slave market.Determined to live free someday,he managed to get trained in iron molding.
[04:36.22]Eventually he saved enough money working at this trade on the side to buy his freedom.Now,by day,
[04:45.60]Parker worked in an iron foundry in the Ohio port of Ripley.By night he was a"conductor" on the Underground Railroad,
[04:57.35]helping people slip by the slave hunters.In Kentucky,where he was now headed,
[05:05.16]there was a$1000 reward for his capture,dead or alive.
[05:11.25]8 Crossing the Ohio River on that chilly night,Parker found ten fugitives frozen with fear."Get your bundles and follow me,
[05:22.17]" he told them,leading the eight men and two women toward the river.
[05:28.05]They had almost reached shore when a watchman spotted them and raced off to spread the news.
[05:36.20]9 Parker saw a small boat and,with a shout,pushed the escaping slaves into it.There was room for all but two.
[05:45.78]As the boat slid across the river,Parker watched helplessly
[05:52.03]as the pursuers closed in around the men he was forced to leave behind.
[05:58.11]10 The others made it to the Ohio shore,
[06:02.14]where Parker hurriedly arranged for a wagon to take them to the next “station”
[06:08.61]on the Underground Railroad--the first leg of their journey to safety in Canada.Over the course of his life,
[06:18.12]John Parker guided more than400 slaves to safety.
[06:23.48]11 While black conductors were often motivated by their own painful experiences,
[06:30.27]whites were commonly driven by religious convictions.Levi Coffin,a Quaker raised in North Carolina,explained,
[06:40.67]“The Bible,in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked,said nothing about color.”
[06:48.27]12 In the 1820s Coffin moved west to Newport(new Fountain City),Indiana,where he opened a store.
[06:58.09]Word spread that fleeing slaves could always find refuge at the Coffin home.
[07:04.59]At times he sheltered as many as 17 fugitives at once,
[07:10.37]and he kept a team and wagon ready to convey them on the next leg of their journey.Eventually three principal routes
[07:20.76]converged at the Coffin house,which came to be the Crand Central Terminal of the Underground Railroad.
[07:29.44]13 For his efforts,Coffin received frequent death threats and warnings that his stores and home would be burned.
[07:38.58]Nearly every conductor faced similar risks--or worse.In the North,
[07:45.76]a magistrate might have imposed a fine or a brief jail sentence for aiding those escaping.In the Southern states,
[07:55.98]whites were sentenced to months or even years in jail.One courageous Methodist minister,Calvin Fairbank,
[08:07.08]was imprisoned for more than 17 years in Kentucky,where he kept a log of his beatings:35,105 stripes with the whip.
[08:20.06]14 As for the slaves,escape meant a journey of hundreds of miles through unknown country,
[08:27.22]where they were ususlly easy to recognize.
[08:31.32]With no road signs and few maps,they had to put their trust in directions passed by word of mouth
[08:39.58]and in secret signs--nails driven into trees,for example--that conductors used to mark the route north.
[08:49.08]15 Many slaves traveled under cover of night,their faces sometimes caked with white powder.
[08:56.74]Quakers often dressed their"passengers",both male and female,in gray dresses,deep bonnets and full veils.On one occasion,
[09:08.65]Levi Coffin was transporting so many runaway slaves that he disguised them as a funeral procession.
[09:17.53]16 Canada was the primary destination for many fugitives.Slavery had been abolished there in 1833,
[09:27.38]and Canadian authorities encouraged the runaways to settle their vast virgin land.Among them was Josiah Henson.
[09:37.93]17 As a boy in Maryland,Henson watched as his entire family was sold to different buyers,
[09:45.56]and he saw his mother harshly beaten when she tried to keep him with her.
[09:52.04]Making the best of his lot,Henson worked diligently and rose far in his owner's regard.
[10:00.19]18 Money problems eventually compelled his master to send Henson,his wife and children to a brother in Kentucky.
[10:09.57]After laboring there for several years,Henson heard alarming news:the new master
[10:17.64]was planning to sell him for plantation work far away in the Deep South.The slave would be separated forever from his family.
[10:28.24]19 There was only one answer:flight."I knew the North Star,"Henson wrote years later.
[10:37.10]"Like the star of Bethlehem,it announced where my salvation lay."
[10:43.42]20 At huge risk,Henson and his wife set off with their four children.Two weeks later,starving and exhausted,
[10:53.27]the family reached Cincinnati,where they made contact with members of the Underground Railroad.
[11:00.98]"Carefully they provided for our welfare,and then they set us thirty miles on our way by wagon."
[11:09.47]21 The Hensons continued north,arriving at last in Buffalo,N.Y.There a friendly captain pointed across the Niagara River.
[11:21.53]"Do you see those trees?he said.They grow on free soil." He gave Henson a dollar and arranged for a boat,
[11:30.99]which carried the slave and his family across the river to Canada.
[11:36.63]22 I threw myself on the ground,rolled in the sand and danced around,till,
[11:43.92]in the eyes of several who were present,I passed for a madman.'He's some crazy fellow,'said a Colonel Warren.”
[11:54.27]23 "'Oh,no!Don't you know?I'm free!'"
[11:58.99]slender settlement confident give up
[12:03.12]苗條的 新拓居地 確信的 放棄
[12:07.25]creator devotion cabin ironically
[12:10.33]上帝 深愛 小棚屋 具有諷刺意味的是
[12:13.41]symbolize racial sellout unwilling
[12:17.24]象征 種族的 背叛者 勉強(qiáng)的
[12:21.07]stand up(for) historic site slavery
[12:24.57]支持 歷史上有名的 地方 奴隸制
[12:28.07]mission courageous forge underground
[12:31.32]特殊使命 勇敢的 建立 秘密的
[12:34.57]web liberate authorize civil-rights
[12:37.85]網(wǎng)狀物 解放 批準(zhǔn) 民權(quán)的
[12:41.13]exploit unsung intent pistol
[12:45.36]功績 未獲得承認(rèn)的 堅決的 手槍
[12:49.59]decade foundry on the side capture
[12:53.38]十年 鑄造廠 作為兼職 抓捕
[12:57.17]chilly fugitive watchman helplessly
[13:00.00]冷的 逃亡者 看守人 無能為力地
[13:02.84]pursuer close in (on/around) hurriedly wagon
[13:09.42]追捕者 接近 倉促地 四輪運貨馬車
[13:16.00]painful religious conviction Quaker
[13:19.65]疼痛的 宗教的 堅定的 公誼會教徒
[13:23.29]Bible clothe naked converge
[13:27.34]圣經(jīng) 給…穿衣服 裸體的 集中
[13:31.39]terminal magistrate impose jail
[13:34.93]終點 執(zhí)法官 把…強(qiáng)加于 監(jiān)獄
[13:38.47]Methodist imprison stripe as for
[13:42.26]循道宗的 監(jiān)禁 鞭打 至于
[13:46.04]unknown cake powder bonnet
[13:48.70]陌生的 覆蓋 粉末 女帽
[13:51.35]veil transport runaway disguise
[13:54.44]面紗 運輸 逃跑的人 假扮
[13:57.54]funeral procession abolish virgin
[14:00.33]葬禮 隊伍 廢除 未開發(fā)的
[14:03.13]harshly make the best of diligently compel
[14:06.48]嚴(yán)厲地 盡量利用 勤奮地 強(qiáng)迫
[14:09.84]plantation salvation at risk starve
[14:13.11]種植園 拯救 冒風(fēng)險 使餓死
[14:17.97]在某人看來 被看作