The Underground Railroad...

It seems this is the week of diverse and interesting museum visits. Temecula Valley Museum's current exhibit, Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad, was another not to be missed.

Exhibit creator and photographer Jeanine Michna-Bales spent more than a decade meticulously researching those fleeing slavery and the ways they escaped. While the unnumbered routes of the Underground Railroad encompassed countless square miles, the path Michna-Bales documented encompasses roughly 2,000 miles and is based on actual sites, cities, and places that freedom-seekers passed through during their journey.
"They left during the middle of the night – oftentimes carrying little more than the knowledge that moss grows on the north side of trees. An estimated 100,000 enslaved blacks in the decades prior to the Civil War in 1865 chose to embark on this journey of untold hardships in search of freedom. They moved in constant fear of being killed outright or recaptured then returned and beaten as an example of what would happen to others who might choose to run."
"Under the cover of darkness, ‘fugitives’ traveled roughly 20 miles each night traversing rugged terrain while enduring all the hardships that Mother Nature could bring to bear. Occasionally, they were guided from one secret, safe location to the next by an ever-changing, clandestine group known as the Underground Railroad. Whether they were enslaved blacks trying to escape or free blacks and whites trying to help, both sides risked everything for the cause of freedom. From a cotton plantation just South of Natchitoches, Louisiana all the way north into Canada, this series of photographs can help us imagine what the long road to freedom may have looked like as seen through the eyes of one freedom seeker making this epic journey."

"A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing of "O Canaan, sweet Canaan I am bound for the land of Canaan," something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the North and the North was our Canaan." -Frederick Douglass
Through a series of images and quotations, we were given a glimpse of the journey endured, the places of rest, and the words that inspired, while searching for freedom.
Stopover Frogmore Plantation, Concordia Parish, Louisiana.
Decision to Leave Magnolia Plantation on the Cane River, Louisiana.

"The man I called Master was my half brother. My mother was a better woman than his, and I was the smartest boy of the two, but while he had a right smart chance at school, I was whipped if I asked the name of the letters that spell the name of the God that made us both of one blood." -William, slave and half brother to a US Senator


Look for the Gray Barn Out Back Joshua Eliason Jr. barnyards and farmhouse, with a tunnel leading underneath the road to another station, Centerville, Indiana.
Throughout, the images traversed a timeline, with the intense darkness slowly giving away to light (hope). It is a retelling of the stories of an estimated 100,000 slaves, who between 1830 and the end of the Civil War, chose to embark on this journey in search of freedom. While this exhibit was one documenting injustices and deep sadness, it also brought the history to light. And as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

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