Sailing to Freedom

A series of workshops for teachers about New Bedford's role in the Underground Railroad and the Abolitionist movement

This week-long, 2015 Summer Workshop for Teachers (July 12-17 and July 19-24) at UMass Dartmouth will focus on the national influence of New Bedford, Massachusetts within the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement, the town’s unique role in the Underground Railroad, the development of its dynamic, prosperous African American community and its maritime history and culture.

Join distinguished historians, literary scholars, art and architectural historians and anthropologists for a week-long NEH “Landmarks of American History and Culture” workshop that will give you profound new insights to the compelling story of the Underground Railroad. The workshops provide K-12 teachers with the opportunity to engage in intensive study and discussion of fundamental issues and events in our national past, while providing them with firsthand experiences in the interpretation of significant historical and cultural sites through the use of archival and other primary-source evidence.

Frederick Douglass wrote that New Bedford's people of color were "much more spirited than I had supposed they would be,” with a “determination to protect each other from the blood-thirsty kidnapper [that is, bounty-hunters looking for escaped slaves], at all hazards.”

Printable version of the Homepage (PDF)