Historian retraces Underground Railroad to mark America's 250-year journey

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As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding, 1 historiographer is traveling 750 miles to punctual Americans wherever that past has taken us.

Anthony Cohen, 62, isn't the archetypal idiosyncratic to marque this trek. It's a way that was erstwhile portion of the Underground Railroad. a concealed web of routes traversed by thousands of enslaved radical who had escaped captivity and sought state successful Canada.

Cohen, a historian, archetypal traveled the Underground Railroad successful 1996 from his location authorities of Maryland to Ontario, Canada. Since then, helium has established the Menare Foundation, which creates immersive, history-based experiences to thatch audiences astir the Underground Railroad.

For America's 250th anniversary, helium wanted to again bring the once-treacherous travel into the spotlight. He chose different route, this 1 from Sandy Spring, Maryland, to Toronto. Cohen says helium utilized "a batch of historical maps" and humanities accounts to find the route, which helium calls the "Freedom Walk."

The travel has coiled done Delaware, New Jersey and New York. A batch of the travel has been connected foot, but sometimes Cohen uses different forms of transportation, including a bid to upstate New York that intimately follows the historical route.

"Any state question is astir putting 1 ft successful beforehand of the different and going for it," Cohen said.

He isn't alone. The Menare Foundation shared a database of stops helium would beryllium making, allowing radical to travel larn astir the past and his travel on the way. The Harriet Tubman Journey to Freedom statue is accompanying them connected the walk.

Cohen besides invited Tom DeWolf, whose household was erstwhile the largest slave-trader successful the United States, to articulation him.

"I said, 'But I'm a White guy,'" DeWolf said. "And helium said, 'White people, White radical helped.' And past helium said 'You tin constitute a caller bequest for your family.'"

At events, Cohen and DeWolf are speaking astir the past of the enslaved trade, the Underground Railroad and the locomotion itself.

Cohen volition transverse into Canada connected July 1. He is slated to get successful Toronto and implicit his travel connected July 4, conscionable successful clip for the 250th day of the United States.

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