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  • The Critic Magazine

    90 Minutes A Slave

    Aug 26, 2021 6 minutes
    BY OLIVER WISEMAN IN WASHINGTON

    AROUND MY WRIST IS THE SORT OF brightly coloured paper band usually used to demonstrate backstage access at a music festival. Instead, I am sitting in the First Congressional Church in Detroit, Michigan. Rather than VIP status, my bracelet points to a different designation, and the single word with which it is emblazoned gets right to the point: “slave”.

    I have come to Detroit to pretend to be a runaway slave. This nineteenth century playacting is offered by the First Congressional Church. Their Flight To Freedom tour is, according to their website, a “storytelling re-enactment of the original Underground Railroad passage”. It is one of a number of re-enactments around the country that tries to recreate the journey from bondage to freedom, via a hidden network of safe houses, that was undertaken by at least 100,000 slaves before the Civil War.

    More than a century and a half ago, the First Congressional Church was

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