Halfway to Freedom
High School: Grades 9–12
Story
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The next afternoon, Hannah crouched among sacks of wheat in a dark freight car. She would've been excited about her first train ride, but all she could think about was Shepherd sitting on a jail bench, waiting for the judge to decide his fate. Suddenly the car's latch clanked. The door rolled open, and a figure passed through the crack of daylight, then the door rolled shut again. Hannah shrank deeper into her hideaway.
"Wade in the wa-ter" came five notes from a tenor voice.
Hannah started. Was it the signal? Or was it a trick to make her reveal herself? She waited. The notes sounded again. She waited. Once again those notes came, closer this time. That voice! Could it be?
She decided to take the chance. "Wade in the wa-ter," she hummed very softly in reply. A familiar hand reached out of the darkness to find her, then someone sat down beside her. They waited in silence until the train was roaring northward.
Hannah spoke first, "Welcome aboard."
"Thank you, Miss. I'm headed for Canada. And you, sweet lady, where are you going this fine afternoon?"
"All the way to Freedom!"
Sources
Chicago History Museum, various archival sources.
Biles, Roger. Illinois: A History of the Land and Its People. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005.
Bridges, Roger D. “Equality Deferred: Civil Rights for Illinois Blacks, 1865–1885.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 74:2 (1981): 82–108.
Reed, Christopher Robert. Black Chicago’s First Century, Volume 1, 1833–1900. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005.
Reiff, Janice L., Ann Durkin Keating, and James R. Grossman, eds. The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org
Spinney, Robert G. City of Big Shoulders: A History of Chicago. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000.
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