#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. • The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!

Examines the events and key figures behind the formation and operation of the Underground Railroad, the secretive and illegal organization that helped American slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States and Canada.

"Historically significant document by Still, a free-born Black man who became an author and abolitionist movement leader in Philadelphia, PA. The volume document the stories of escaped slaves, and remains "the only first-person account of Black activities on the Underground Railroad written and self-published by an African-America...William Still was a major contributor to the success of the Underground Railroad activities in Philadelphia and a part of Philadelphia's free Black community that played an essential role in the Underground Railroad. He personally provide room and board for many African Americans who escaped slavery and stopped in Philadelphia on their way to Canada. Through his work with the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery's Vigilance Committee, he raised funds to assist runaways and arrange their passage to the North. He was instrumental in financing several of Harriet Tubman's trips to the South to liberate enslaved Africans" (Turner, Diane D. "William Still's National Significance." Web blog post. William Still: African American Abolitionist. Temple University, n.d. 18 August, 2016)." --description from Lorne Bair Rare Books Inc., bookseller.

From a "conductor" who assisted runaway slaves in their flight to freedom, here is a collection of letters, newspaper articles, and firsthand accounts about refugees' narrow escapes and deadly struggles. Over 50 illustrations.

No one knows where the term Underground Railroad came from--there were no trains or tracks, only "conductors" who helped escaping slaves to freedom. Including real stories about "passengers" on the "Railroad," this book chronicles slaves' close calls with bounty hunters, exhausting struggles on the road, and what they sacrificed for freedom. With 80 black-and-white illustrations throughout and a sixteen-page black-and-white photo insert, the Underground Railroad comes alive!

Provides a look at the network known as the Underground Railroad - that mysterious "system" of individuals and organizations that helped slaves escape the American South to freedom during the years before the Civil War. This work also explores the people, places, writings, laws, and organizations that made this network possible.

The success of the Underground Railroad depended on the participation of sympathizers in hundreds of areas throughout the country, each operating independently. Each area was distinctive both geographically and societally. This work focuses on the contributions of people in the Adirondack region, including their collaboration with operatives from Albany to New York City. With more than 10 years of research, the author has been able to take what for years in northern New York was considered akin to legend and transform it into history. Abolitionist newspapers--such as Friend of Man, Liberator, Pennsylvania Freeman, Emancipator, National Anti-Slavery Standard, and the little known Albany Patriot--that were published weekly from 1841 to 1848, as well as materials from local archives, were utilized. The book has extensive maps, photographs and appendices; key contributors to the cause are identified, abolition meetings and conventions are described, and maps of the Underground Railroad stations by county are provided.