Underground Railroad Lecture at the Michigan Maritime Museum

Join presenter Dr. Larry McClellan and the Michigan Maritime Museum on Wednesday, February 12th at 6:30 PM as McClellan weaves a tale of freedom seekers in the Great Lakes region. Freedom via Water! Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad on and near Lake Michigan will discuss the decades before the Civil War when hundreds of freedom seekers escaping their enslavement in the South made their way to Chicago and then onward to Detroit and freedom in Canada. They traveled on and near Lake Michigan and once in Detroit, crossed Lake Huron to freedom. With images, maps, and stories, this program will explore these journeys.

McClellan charts the evolution of the northeastern Illinois freedom network and shows how, despite its small Black community, Chicago emerged as a point of refuge. The 1848 completion of the I & M Canal and later the Chicago to Detroit train system created more opportunities for Black men, women, and children to escape slavery. From eluding authorities to confronting kidnapping bands working out of St. Louis and southern Illinois, these stories of valor are inherently personal. Through deep research into local sources, McClellan presents the engrossing, entwined journeys of freedom seekers and the activists in Chicagoland who supported them. McClellan includes specific freedom seeker journey stories and introduces Black and white activists who provided aid in a range of communities along particular routes.

This presentation highlights how significant biracial collaboration led to friendships as Black and white abolitionists worked together to provide support for freedom seekers traveling through the area and ultimately to combat slavery in the United States. 

Dr. Larry A. McClellan is Professor Emeritus, at Governors State University. Author, of The Underground Railroad South of Chicago (2019) and co-author of To the River, the Remarkable Journey of Caroline Quarlls, A Freedom Seeker on the Underground Railroad (2019). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illinois State Historical Society (2022) and his latest book: Onward to Chicago: Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Illinois (2023) received the national Underground Railroad Free Press 2023 Memorial Prize

Award for the Advancement of Knowledge and the 2024 Book Award for Superior Achievement from the Illinois State Historical Society. Larry has spoken at 5 Illinois state history conferences and 3 national conferences of the National Park Service Network to Freedom program. Currently, he is President of the Midwest Underground Railroad Network and serves on the Illinois Underground Railroad Task Force.

This presentation is part of the Museum’s 2025 Whispers Across the Water program series that showcases minority contributions to Great Lakes maritime history and heritage.

The Michigan Maritime Museum

michiganmaritimemuseum.org

(269) 637-8078 ext. 103

This lecture series is made possible thanks to the Nielsen-Wells Grant Fund and Mike & Susan Smith. Tickets are free for Museum members and $10 for non-members. Doors open at 6 PM.

Admission: $10