Profs & Pints Philadelphia: Philadelphia and the Underground Railroad

Profs and Pints Philadelphia presents: “Philadelphia and the Underground Railroad,” with Andrew Diemer, professor of history at Towson University and author of Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad has long been cloaked in legend, with that legend only growing over time as filmmakers and novelists have provided their own takes on it and old houses have been claimed to have concealed areas that hid fugitive slaves. Local historians eagerly trace out the tracks of this railroad, identifying its “stations” and “stationmasters” and “conductors,” but other professional historians remain skeptical of such claims. Hear Underground Railroad fact sorted from fiction, and learn about Philadelphia’s pivotal role as a center of efforts to free people from bondage, when historian Andrew Diemer comes to the Black Squirrel Club in Philadelphia’s Fishtown. Drawing heavily from his biography of William Still, the leader of Philadelphia abolitionist group who helped well over 600 enslaved people reach freedom, Professor Diemer will discuss the origins and operations of the Underground Railroad. He’ll talk about how people escaped from slavery, who helped them, and how Underground Railroad activists dealt with a political and legal system that favored slavecatchers. You’ll learn about the relationship that Black activists like Still and his ally Harriet Tubman had with white conspirators, many of them Quakers. Diemer will discuss the life of Still, a free-born son of parents who had escaped from slavery, and how he came to become a pivotal figure in Philadelphia’s organized defense of fugitive slaves, the Vigilance Committee. You’ll learn how Still kept meticulous records of his efforts to aid fugitive slaves and then drew from those records in writing his monumental 1872 history The Underground Railroad, which brought to life the stories of hundreds of fugitives who had fled to Philadelphia and described how the fugitives themselves were the Underground Railroad’s engine. It's a talk that will bring to life a chapter of history that too many have sought to bury or obscure. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 3:30 pm. Talk starts at 4:30.) Image: “Resurrection of Henry Box Brown,” an illustration from William Still’s 1872 book The Underground Railroad. (New York Public Library Schomberg Center.)