“Voices on the Underground Railroad” is a collection of short narratives that Cornell University students have written and mapped on to documented and rumored underground railroad stations and safe houses in Central and Western New York. The site was collaboratively built by students in the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity working with mentors, and community partners, and will launch soon.
The freedom seekers who narrate these stories are fictional, invented by students in Cornell’s “The Underground Railroad Seminar” and related courses. These fictionalized voices–honed after careful study of the classic slave narratives and the history of the underground railroad–permit us to imagine the thoughts and experiences of freedom seekers on their paths to liberation.
Click here to visit the project website.
Read more about the project in the Cornell Chronicle: "Freedom seekers speak on Underground Railroad website"
Collaborators:
- Milstein Program students
- Todd Edmunds, Iron Design (website design)
- Shira Evergreen, Uplifted Ithaca (drone footage/photography)
- Chris Delcollo, AWP (website)
- Julia Taylor and Carley Robinson, Civic Ensemble (direction for voice actors)
Links:
- Project website
- Article about the project in the Cornell Chronicle