The following links to discovering the legacy of the Underground Railroad are available right here at the Michigan Historical Center web site. Check back often—we'll be providing more links to our own new resources and to trusted sites throughout the web.

From the Michigan Historical Center

Michigan Freedom Trail Lessons - "Building Collective Narratives: Teaching Michigan Stories" from the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission

Teachers' Stuff from the Michigan Historical Museum

"Malinda Paris: Memorial of a Child of the Underground Railroad"

• Background reading for "Child of the Underground Railroad" 
• Lesson plan for "Child of the Underground Railroad"

Michigan Time Traveler, a Newspapers in Education project of the Michigan Historical Museum and the Lansing State

"The Underground Railroad" (February 13, 2002)

• "The Underground Railroad" newspaper page
• "The Underground Railroad" teacher's guide [PDF]

"Thorton and Lucie Blackburn Escape"

• "Thorton and Lucie Blackburn Escape" newspaper page [PDF]
• "Thorton and Lucie Blackburn Escape" teacher's guide [PDF]

Black history links.

Compiled by the Michigan Historical Museum, these links include—but are not limited to—the Underground Railroad.

• Go to the museum's black history resources page.

Elsewhere on the WWW

Accessible Archives

Accessible Archives is a subscription "full text database of primary source material" of 19th-century African American newspapers.

Africans in America

A companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series, the Africans in America web site chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century to the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It exploress the central paradox that is at the heart of the American story: a democracy that declared all men equal but enslaved and oppressed one people to provide independence and prosperity to another. Africans in America examines the economic and intellectual foundations of slavery in America and reveals how the presence of African people and their struggle for freedom transformed America.

Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature and culture. Currently, DocSouth includes ten thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews and songs, taken primarily from the holdings of the University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.

The Underground Railroad Flight to Freedom Program

The Underground Railroad Living Museum program is designed to assist in capturing the full story of the Underground Railroad for researchers, educators, nonprofit organizations and their constituencies. It seeks to provide valuable primary and secondary resources to inform those who are focused on sustaining the national legacy of the Underground Railroad. One way of achieving this goal is through the establishment of an electronic and physical communications system that features summaries of key people, places and events in Michigan UGRR history.

Contact the Michigan Historical Center.

Updated 07/09/2010