Memorial to the Underground Railroad (Battle Creek, Michigan)
Dublin Core
Title
Subject
Antislavery movements--United States
Freedom
Fugitive slaves--United States
Michigan--Battle Creek
Public art
Public sculpture
Underground Railroad
Hussey, Erastus, 1800-1889
Hussey, Sarah Bowen, 1808-1899
Tubman, Harriet, 1822-1913
Commemorative sculpture
Description
On the right of the monument, stands a figure of Tubman with a walking stick in her right hand as she gestures behind her towards a group of freedom seekers walking through a woods including a young boy carrying a bed roll, a woman with head wrap, and a man in a hat, coat and trousers who grasps a young child on his back. A bas relief shows a row boat coming ashore while a wagon awaits the freedom seekers on the shoreline.
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Has Part
Bronze plaque:
Memorial to the Underground Railroad.
From the 1830s to the 1861, thousands of slaves in the southern United States courageously escaped northward to freedom to what became known as the Underground Railroad. Along this secret network, ‘conductors’ like Battle Creek’s Erastus and Sarah Hussey, whose likenesses are captured in this memorial, took great personal risks to ensure the safety of escaping slaves. Harriet Tubman, known as the Black Moses, was a national heroine of this epic struggle and is depicted leading another brave family away from the shackles of slavery. This memorial honors the Underground Railroad and is dedicated to the strength of the human spirit in the quest for freedom. Ed Dwight, Sculptor. Denver, Colorado. 1993. This sculpture was made possible by a gift from the Glenn A. Cross Estate and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.