Received 11 October 2006 Accepted 14 January 2007
Abstract. During acute exercise several signi.cant cardiovascular alterations take place, along with possible physiopathological consequences, such as Exercise Inducted Pulmonary Haemorrhage (EIPH). Given the relevance of blood rheology in the de-termination of .ow resistance and its supposed participation in the stated events, the present paper focuses on the analysis of modi.cations in haematocrit, blood viscosity and erythrocyte deformability in Thoroughbred horses caused by two different levels of effort (6 to 9 m/s and 13 to 16 m/s), in the same track they train in and with their own jockeys. The results obtained show a deep modi.cation in those parameters, as consequence of the exercise. However, no signi.cant discrepancies were observed between the different levels of effort in which the training was performed.
Keywords: Blood viscosity, stress, hemorrheology, training, erythrocyte, deformability

Received 11 October 2006 Accepted 14 January 2007
Abstract. During acute exercise several signi.cant cardiovascular alterations take place, along with possible physiopathological consequences, such as Exercise Inducted Pulmonary Haemorrhage (EIPH). Given the relevance of blood rheology in the de-termination of .ow resistance and its supposed participation in the stated events, the present paper focuses on the analysis of modi.cations in haematocrit, blood viscosity and erythrocyte deformability in Thoroughbred horses caused by two different levels of effort (6 to 9 m/s and 13 to 16 m/s), in the same track they train in and with their own jockeys. The results obtained show a deep modi.cation in those parameters, as consequence of the exercise. However, no signi.cant discrepancies were observed between the different levels of effort in which the training was performed.
Keywords: Blood viscosity, stress, hemorrheology, training, erythrocyte, deformability
1. Introduction
During acute and intense training, a series of cardiovascular modi.cations arise, leading the system to the edge of its response capacity and a signi.cant percentage of horses shows different levels of pulmonary bleeding (produced by exercise [EIPH]), which would be due to two factors: high blood pressure and viscosity. The rise in blood pressure can lead, in some animals, to rupture of lung capillaries. It must be borne in mind that blood pressure is determined by both cardiac output and the resistance of the vascular bed. As the race goes on, a remarkable boost in the cardiac work increases the .ow strongly; and even if vasodilatation occurs, helping to diminish the resistance, the impairment in the rheological properties of blood can lead to a increase in the shear stress and, consequently, harming the fragile pulmonary capillaries thus inducing their pathological alteration.
*Corresponding author: Dr. Giordano Catalani, Cátedra de Físiología, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Ovidio Lagos y Ruta 33, 2170 Casilda, Argentina. Fax: +543464 420077; E-mail: galena@arnet.com.ar.
1386-0291/07/$17.00 . 2007 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved
G. Catalani et al. / Horses acute effort and haemorheology
In fact, along the last decades, numerous observations were reported, stating that blood viscosity can increase .ow resistance several times above the most conspicuous vasoconstriction.
Researches performed in treadmill showed a relation between the level of effort and the catecholamine-mediated splenic contraction that increases the circulating volume and the haematocrit. The latter is the main

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

Freedom’s Road is Long and Hard

Many of us have read the recounted stories of a railroad whose tracks ran the length of the East coast before Amtrak and made local stops from the banks of Africa’s shores to the shores of the Carolinas and to Georgia’s hills then across the border into Canada. The tracks were built on faith and conviction. The fuel was d.i.e.s.e.l.–desire, ingenuity, endurance, self-worth, energy, and longing. The cars were made of people seeking freedom that they inherently felt and were pulled by such engines as Harriet Tubman with numerous African, indigenous American, Quaker, and Unitarian conductors and engineers keeping things on track. The caboose was a treasure chest of the memories of family and friends left behind and the hope of being reunited with them one day.

This train of which I speak was the Underground Railroad. Underground in the sense that it was so secretive no one knew its route or its next stop even if they were right next to it. No one was to see the passengers other than other passengers or conductors.

The passengers on this trains were not able to recline their seats, pull a blanket up around their necks, turn on their walkmans, and watch the sites go by as they drifted off to sleep. Their riding companions were snakes, mosquitoes, and other insects, all of which were in tune to the hoot of the owl and the chipperwillows cry. The passengers ran as the bloodhounds closed in on their ankles and feet. They ran and hid or were hidden in fireplaces, false bottoms of carriages and wagons, cubby holes and tunnels throughout basements and attics and in walls. Oft time they only found temporary peace in caves. They jumped into waters to throw off the hounds as the bullets rang out around them and the stronger ones kept the weaker down.

I jumped not into the water, but back in time when I boarded this train from New York City. From my first mile out, my life changed and will never again be the same…

The Creator held my hand and walked with me along the lonely highways. At the point that I felt I could journey no more. He/She supported my spirit and pushed me on. I worked and sweated facing the trials and tribulations. I heard the ancestors say, “Go on child.” Anytime my back and knees began to bend their voices echoed over and over again. I asked the Lord to speak to my heart and I asked myself, “Why did this journey start?” I felt the answer come back to me that “this is the way it must be.” My eyes begin to get fatigued and my body is weary…

“walk together children…”

I feel a spirit near me. I lift handfuls of water from a basin to my eyes and look into water as it ripples…

“wade in the water…”

I hear the voice of an elder say agitation is the way.

“God’s gonna trouble the water.”

I drift into a dream where reality is my journey’s end and the Creator cradles me only to wake me again. Again I go forth on our story’s ladder I climb until the bell of truth rings out–judgment time!

Yes, the ancestors called and I went. I went to places I never dreamed I would see. I rode a train that now runs on a track of memories. The conductors are the souls of those that are long since gone. Yet, the Underground Railroad still travels on.

Traveling the escape routes of my ancestors was the most moving experience I have ever had. There is a wonderment in having someone tell you the story of an African that decided that freedom meant more than anything…

“Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave…”

…settled into a spot to hide for a night away from slave catchers on your trail. You look into a space that only seems to fit a small child and to touch the stone and feel the touch of someone you cannot see in return–a touch that runs through and fills you with an energy to last the rest of your days.

You listen to more of the story and move on to another person’s doorway where a spirit greets you and takes you in then escorts you to a basement. As you stand in the remains of a tunnel you feel an embrace and then hear an echo of an ill and tired baby ringing out. The wails wane as the mother soothes her with the first bath she’s had in a week and something solid to eat.

You run in the darkness from one house to another where the doors are quickly opened for you. The person’s face you know not. Yet, he welcomes you in without a second guess of what to do. As you look and wonder where the hiding place here will be, you realize that you are now a keeper of history. Oral stories are passed to you for preservation, so they will exist for future generations.

As you rest your body at the end of the night the faces–Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry “Box” Brown, Ellen Kraft, William Still, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner, the sister renamed Annie, the brother now called Jonas, and the babies being put to death by their mothers to keep them from being owned–pass before your eyes. You can feel their pains as they tell you that you must write in their omissions and thus, correct history’s lies.

You travel on as days come and go and the boundaries of time cease to be. Then you see another land and begin to feel victory. You pass the border of Canada and see a land covered with farms. Yet, you cannot rest until you are greeted by an unknown cousins’ open arms. He says, “Shake the dirt from your feet and have a seat.”

My journey has ended, but my work is not done for my people’s minds are still those of the enslaved which causes me to pour forth tears on a grave. A grave of a person whose physical touch I never knew, but somehow I’ve felt and was moved through and through.

I think of my family and the friends I’ve left behind and how slavery severed so many ties. Although the road traveled has been hard, I go back in order to keep my charge. Drifting back from comfort and safety and into another journey–taking back a story of a railroad that traveled land, spirit, and sea.

I now look to the North Star teaching its worth to the babies even when I can hardly stand. My voice lifts and my spirit sings with the ancestors…

“…Walk together children. Don’t you get weary, great camp meeting in the Promised Land…”

“The promised land, i.e. peace, exist within each of us when we center our lives on the truth. Our spirits cannot rest until then.”

© 1993 by Marquetta L. Goodwine

Copying and reprinting from this site not permitted without permission from Ms. Goodwine

If you are interested in more information concerning traveling on the Underground Railroad Journey or to receive information on the Underground Railroad Study, please call the Marquetta L. Goodwine at the Afrikan Kultural Arts Networkx(AKANx) at (212) 439-1026 or write her at QueenMut@aol.com or Extended Kinship Appeal, Inc. Post Office Box 40-0199 Brooklyn NY 11240-0199.

“Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…”

“There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain…”

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Praesent blandit. Sed commodo tellus feugiat risus. Nunc pretium. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Phasellus ligula purus, facilisis non, vulputate et, ornare et, nisi. Suspendisse lobortis rhoncus nulla. Nullam libero mi, elementum a, ullamcorper in, commodo eget, lacus. Fusce egestas arcu at purus. Sed non arcu. Curabitur lacus augue, imperdiet in, vehicula sagittis, dignissim ac, urna.

Sed tempor accumsan enim. Suspendisse at arcu id arcu egestas lobortis. Fusce egestas, urna ac sollicitudin sagittis, ipsum pede euismod arcu, a mattis mi orci malesuada elit. Fusce sed quam. Aenean dignissim pede ut nisi. Phasellus hendrerit tincidunt mauris. Praesent dictum diam vitae orci. Nulla ultrices urna sed risus. Aenean eget justo. Aliquam erat volutpat. Mauris sollicitudin semper odio. Aenean vitae risus.

Pellentesque sapien tortor, feugiat ultricies, dignissim eleifend, sollicitudin ac, mi. Donec auctor, augue in condimentum commodo, orci enim viverra nisi, a fermentum mauris justo ac tellus. Quisque ante tellus, rutrum ut, ullamcorper nec, consequat id, nisi. Nulla at libero. Proin dolor. Cras et turpis. Sed mi. Pellentesque accumsan. Duis nec dolor eget nulla consectetuer egestas. Fusce euismod dignissim ipsum. Phasellus ante. Maecenas vitae orci at sapien pretium convallis. Suspendisse gravida felis non justo. Donec justo. Curabitur ut enim. Cras auctor. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.

Nunc non lacus nec nisl blandit scelerisque. Proin et urna. Etiam tincidunt orci eu lectus. In non sem vitae diam iaculis aliquet. Nulla facilisi. Phasellus nisi ligula, interdum eget, malesuada nec, fringilla vel, urna. Nunc pharetra, lectus quis tristique dapibus, ipsum mauris sodales mi, quis posuere nulla dui non enim. Cras ullamcorper egestas velit. Quisque malesuada quam. Donec aliquet ullamcorper arcu. Etiam quam eros, vulputate vel, accumsan eu, auctor sit amet, purus. Phasellus felis. Curabitur vulputate odio quis turpis.

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Etiam fringilla tortor vitae ligula. Aliquam in pede. Sed eget metus. In mollis nibh eget felis. Morbi odio risus, aliquam quis, laoreet a, mollis quis, neque. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed iaculis dapibus ligula. Morbi nibh magna, accumsan non, viverra ut, pellentesque ultrices, mi. Morbi vel sem. Quisque condimentum dolor in ante. Nam ac quam ac nunc condimentum imperdiet. Vestibulum libero sem, congue non, volutpat eu, mattis non, lorem. Donec at nisl. Duis condimentum, turpis nec condimentum ultrices, sem magna commodo sapien, ac eleifend sem orci et urna. Ut bibendum lacus varius augue. Curabitur condimentum. Cras non lacus ut odio fermentum ullamcorper. Sed eget ligula. Morbi dolor. Morbi ac turpis.

Cras vitae ligula. Integer a erat sit amet neque iaculis pretium. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse potenti. Aliquam vulputate euismod nisl. Suspendisse vestibulum dolor. Vivamus ut mi a lacus adipiscing accumsan. Morbi felis velit, fermentum in, pulvinar vitae, rutrum sed, leo. Nam euismod ultrices diam. Cras ut tortor. Sed eu eros a arcu sodales rutrum. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Sed varius. Duis ullamcorper dolor in dui. Nunc ut nibh a turpis condimentum scelerisque. Nulla sollicitudin. Sed et elit quis mi viverra dapibus.

Donec pulvinar metus in enim. Vivamus accumsan urna consectetuer nulla. Etiam lacinia neque vel massa. Quisque lorem metus, fermentum nec, ultricies quis, blandit in, quam. Mauris vitae orci. Aenean cursus, ligula at venenatis placerat, dui metus vehicula leo, a sagittis quam felis eget pede. Sed scelerisque mattis tortor. Proin eget tortor. Phasellus varius libero vel arcu. Duis ante nunc, rhoncus vel, mollis at, malesuada non, lacus. Vestibulum eget odio. Ut accumsan consectetuer nisl. Maecenas cursus dui non nulla. Proin eros nibh, eleifend in, porta nec, faucibus nec, arcu. Nulla faucibus convallis nibh. In nec felis. Nulla felis elit, consectetuer nec, venenatis sed, condimentum scelerisque, augue. Proin lacus enim, fringilla nullam.

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