Hidden Messages in Negro Spirituals
on the Underground Railroad
Thursday, Aug. 8, at 1:30p. Free. Donations are encouraged and gratefully accepted!
DES PLAINES – Climbing aboard the Underground Railroad was hard enough, but it paled alongside navigating the 1,000-mile or more journey into Canada … and to freedom.
Connie Martin, 64, a retired junior high and high school teacher from Aurora, presents Hidden Messages in Negro Spirituals on the Underground Railroad, at the History Center. Her 60-minute multi-media presentation defines the Negro spiritual, and the pivotal role it played in assisting thousands to escape bondage between 1850 and 1865—navigating their way north through Kentucky, Illinois and Michigan, and into Ontario, Canada.
So how did this 32-year teacher and celebrated aqua fitness instructor, take the plunge and embrace Underground Railroad history? She credits her mother, Dr. Clarice Boswell, a retired teacher and administrator at Joliet Township High School and the University of St. Francis. Boswell’s 2002 book about their family, Lizzie's Story: A Slave Family's Journey to Freedom made use of oral histories, family pictures and documents contained in an 1876 family Bible. Boswell tells the story of her family’s struggle to remain together despite the tortures of slavery.
Martin said those attending the free program at the History Center will learn how lyrics and human emotion, sung in Negro spirituals, were utilized to inform freedom seekers how to escape and which direction to travel.
“We don’t say fugitive or runaway slaves anymore,” Martin said. “We do not refer to them as enslaved people, rather as freedom seekers or self-emancipated people. They are not property.”
Because it was illegal to teach slaves to read or write in most southern states, songs were tools people used to remember and communicate. Hidden message provided navigational tips and strategies for escaping to the North, and dangers to avoid along the way.
“I tell fascinating stories, and recollections of songs’ meaning-imbedded spirituals that I have heard and sang most of my life,” Martin said. “My mother played piano for 25 years in a Black church in Joliet, Ill., during my youth. Many songs were used by our ancestors; their meanings and interpretations that have been passed down to me: a sixth-generation descendant of American slaves in Kentucky.”
She noted that many black and non-denominational churches still sing these songs during their services.
“As a historian, I present the facts,” Martin said. “I’m trying to give my audience American historical information and, hopefully, they can pass it on to someone else.”
Registration is required. To register, please call 847-391-5399 or email contact@desplaineshistory.org
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Made in Chicago:
The Golden Age of Manufacturing in Chicagoland 1872–1972
Thursday, September 12 at 1:30p. Free. Donations are encouraged and gratefully accepted!
Registration is required. To register, call 847-391-5399 or email contact@desplaineshistory.org
For much of the 20th century Chicagoland was the manufacturing capital of the world! More appliances, bicycles, candy, clothing, electronics, furniture, and more were mass produced in the Chicago area than anywhere else on the planet.
Come explore and celebrate Chicagoland’s proud industrial history with presenter Barbara Barrett, and hear about famous companies such as International Harvester, Pullman, Schwinn, Lyon and Healy, Sunbeam, Western Electric, and Motorola just to name a few.
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Messengers of the Unseen:
Mary Todd Lincoln and the Spirtualists”
Thursday, Oct. 10 at 1:30p. Free. Donations are encouraged and gratefully accepted!
Registration is required. To register, please call 847-391-5399 or email contact@desplaineshistory.org
How did a desecrated grave in Sycamore lead to Batavia’s Bellevue Place where Mary Todd Lincoln was committed for insanity?
Join presenter Michael Murschel on a trail through the Fox River Valley, strewn with riots, seances, generals, and detectives – all woven into the veil of Civil War era Spiritualism. Other notable people mentioned in this story include Alan Pinkerton, General George Farnsworth, Myra Bradwell (the first woman attorney in Illinois), and numerous other Spiritualists of the era.
Supported with countless visuals, readings from first-person sources, and a connect-the-dots theme all add to the intrigue of this unique tale.
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Thank you to our friends at Village Bank & Trust and the Kiwanis Club of Des Plaines
who help defray the cost of monthly Coffee Talks.