Hi Bennie and Congratulations to you and Thank you for spearheading Afrigeneas' Underground Railroad Forum.

Enclosed is the URL for Bowdoin's presentation of "Flight to Freedom. " I posted this on the Slavery Forum some months ago but thought it would be appropriate here. "Flight to Freedom" is an interactive experience. The visitor can choose an enslaved person, assume their identity and then begin their journey to freedom.

When I first visited the site, it reminded me of your collaboration with the Ohio high school students and the USCT Cemetery project. Bowdoin's site is an educational experience for both young and old.

It opens with this introduction:

"Slavery, according to historian and sociologist Orlando Patterson, was social death. This was especially so of the slavery practiced in the United States from its very founding as a colonial empire in 1609, to 1865, when ended the bloody struggle which abolished the institution and united the nation. During the three and one-half centuries of slavery's existence, millions of African-descended people were torn from their homes, separated from family and community, and brutally put to the lash for profit.

These Africans resisted. In nearly every conceivable way, they registered their protest against their enslavement. One of the most important ways they resisted was to remove their labor from the reach of their masters. By running away Ñ by "stealing themselves" Ñ they not only deprived their taskmasters of their labor, they escaped the dehumanizing work regime of servitude, and sometimes found new lives in freedom. This website has been designed to capture a sense of that experience.

We hope you find this website educational. We warn you: it may not always be pleasant. We have taken from the pages of history Ñ from the words of those who actually escaped servitude to write their own stories Ñ in an effort to give voice to those who have remained for too long without a voice. The great abolitionist Wendell Phillips once said that only when men stopped writing history would the story of the lions be told. It is time to hear the tale of the lions."

The above uses the word "Resistance". It's a description that often resonates in your discussion of African Americans during their enslavement and their active participation the Civil War.

Thank you again for your support and dedication. Enjoy the site and share it with everyone you know.

K Wyer Lane