DEADLINE CHANGE

Harriet Tubman Essay Contest 

Deadline MARCH 1, 2017 !

So remind any students you know to get busy...

2017 National Underground Railroad Conference

On the Edge of Freedom:
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the Borderlands

2017 National Underground Railroad Conference
2017 Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Conference

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: March 1, 2017

The National Park Service, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom (NTF) Program and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Conference will co-host a joint conference in 2017, in honor of the grand opening of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Church Creek, Maryland. The conference, "On the Edge of Freedom: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the Borderlands," will be held in Cambridge, Maryland, May 18-21, 2017.

This conference will explore all aspects of the Underground Railroad in borderlands—both literal and figurative. For a more complete discussion of the theme, see the attached "Historical Context Statement." The Conference Program Committee welcomes proposals from a wide variety of scholars, community researchers, site stewards, educators, interpreters, and others interested in Underground Railroad history. Some ideas for presentation topics include, but are not limited to:

• Explore the contours of personal borderlands between black and white families in slave states that affected their understanding and accommodation of slavery and freedom
• How did knowledge and ability to negotiate and manipulate borderlands facilitate or obstruct escape?
• Who were the members of local communities who secretly crossed back and forth between local, regional, and national borderlands?
• How did trade, travel, and commerce facilitate the crossing of borderlands?
• Contrast black communities on opposite sides of borderlands
• How was the Underground Railroad different in the borderland regions, both in the North and South?
• What factors influenced the Underground Railroad, slavery, and freedom in borderlands?
• How did international borderland regions compare to internal (to the US) borderlands?
• How did the boundaries between freedom and enslavement affect relationships between enslaved and free blacks?
• Kidnappings and reverse Underground Railroad
• Creating and maintaining freedom and communities in borderlands
• Transnationalism and the Underground Railroad

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Accepted presenters can expect to receive notification by February 15, 2017

For more information, please visit our website: www.nps.gov/ugrr or contact:

Diane Miller, National Program Manager
Network to Freedom
National Park Service
4068 Golden Hill Road
Church Creek, Maryland 21622
Phone: 410-221-2290, x 1111
E-mail: diane_miller@nps.gov

Or

Terry Nield or Ellen Mousin
tubman.conference@gmail.com