Critique

As someone keenly interested in the Underground Railroad (UGRR), especially its history in New Jersey, I felt compelled to write this critique of Hidden In Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad. I was concerned that this study greatly misrepresents the operation of the UGRR; it gives those who know very little about black American history in general and the UGRR in particular a distorted view of this form of slave protest. The UGRR, shrouded as it is already in many myths and legends, hardly needs another. And as I encountered many who had read this book, all of whom believed its argument, I became convinced that the making of another UGRR myth was already under way. This critique seeks to help in reversing this process.