The ‘Underground Railroad’ (UGRR) was the name given to routes of escape for enslaved people labouring in the southern United States. Operating during the 19th century, ‘conductors’ guided the escapees and hid them in buildings owned by sympathetic abolitionists. But if the Underground Railroad never formed, would it have had a wider impact on the abolitionist movement? Perhaps even on the civil rights movement of the 20th century?
What was the Underground Railroad?
The Underground Railroad was an unofficial, unorganised (largely) movement of abolitionists and of people generally who were opposed to slavery and who came to the assistance of those who were escaping from slavery. They did this by providing food, safe havens and doing their best to ensure that the enslaved people got to whichever of the various ‘Free Soil’ destinations they were fleeing to. It is an organisation that emerged roughly
