Product Description

In turbulent antebellum America, the Ohio River was both a river of slavery and a river of freedom. The Ohio was a crucial conduit for the trade that linked farmers and merchants of the Northwest to the slave plantations of the South, and it also carried African American men, women and children caught up in the slave trade downriver to Cotton Belt markets. Slaves on the southern banks of the Ohio saw it as their own River Jordan, across which lay the Promised Land of freedom. Hundreds of miles of land along the northern bank of the Ohio, the essential first stop on the famed Underground Railroad, became the front line of the struggle to help African Americans attain their freedom.

Traditional historical accounts depict the Underground Railroad as a movement engineered and maintained by white abolitionists, and many have assumed that African Americans played no significant role except as passengers. In Front Line of Freedom, Keith P. Griffler shifts the focus away from the usual emphasis placed on support operations, or "stations," run by whites along routes used to conduct fugitives into the Northern states or into Canada. Instead, he stresses the essential role of African Americans in Ohio River port communities.

While most fugitives understandably crossed the Ohio River on their way to destinations farther away from their pursuers, those African Americans who remained in the Ohio Valley gave the impetus for the formation and growth of a region’s underground freedom movement. These intrepid frontline warriors faced hostility and violence from Southern slaveholders and their Northern sympathizers in a region economically dependent on slavery. Griffler paints a new picture of the long road from slavery to freedom by highlighting the vital, courageous, and often dangerous attempts by Ohio valley African Americans to harbor fugitive slaves beginning their flights to freedom.

Front Line of Freedom unfolds the surprising history of an interracial struggle against slavery. Refuting old notions of whites working and African Americans riding on the Underground Railroad, Griffler reveals meaningful collaboration between blacks and whites at every level of the enterprise. Long before soldiers donned blue and gray uniforms, the activities of free African Americans in the Ohio River Valley made the region an initial battleground in the protracted fight to end the institution of slavery in America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #924372 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Booklist
An entry in the Ohio River Valley series, this innovative examination of the Underground Railroad explores the often neglected and overlooked roles African Americans played in this significant chapter in American history. Though many conventional histories give the impression that white abolitionists were the risk-taking conductors while escaped slaves were merely passive passengers on the Underground Railroad, the truth is that this was one of the first truly interracial enterprises, conceived and executed by daring and committed members of both races. Seeking to set the historical record straight by demonstrating that "African Americans were central to the development and operation of the Underground Railroad," Griffler introduces a variety of African American voices and viewpoints gleaned from letters, reminiscences, and oral histories. By cross-checking these primary sources against contemporary scholarship, he is able to present a balanced overview of one of the first collaborative efforts between the races in America. An important contribution to the history of the Ohio River Valley and the sociology of the African American experience. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"I easily rank this as my #1 book of the year, for general readers and academics alike.-- AfroAmericanHeritage.com" -- AfroAmericanHeritage.com

"Griffler has done a fine job rescuing lost stories. His objective to create a more racially balanced history of the Underground Railroad is timely and eminently sensible.-- American Historical Review" -- American Historical Review

"This innovative examination of the Underground Railroad explores the often neglected and overlooked roles African Americans played.... Griffler introduces a variety of African American voices and viewpoints. An important contribution.-- Booklist" -- Booklist

"Griffler has provided the reader with names of largely unheralded white and black heroes and heroines normally neglected in any studies of this subject.-- Bowling Green (KY) Daily News" -- Bowling Green (KY) Daily News

"Griffler has made an important scholarly contribution to the historiography of the Underground Railroad by focusing on the 'front line' of this emancipation network-the African Americans who led so many bonds people across the Ohio River.... Highly recommended.-- Choice" -- Choice

"Both refreshing and compelling, highlighting the major role that African-Americans in Ohio, individually and communally, played in the ferrying of freedom seekers from Kentucky, Virginia, and other slave states to freedom in the North.-- Civil War Book Review" -- Civil War Book Review

"Frontline of Freedom is a valuable contribution to the growing field of Underground Railroad studies, and one hopes the field will continue in this vein. It is not a simplistic triumphal history of black involvements and interracial cooperation. It is a stirring reminder of the high price of freedom, and of what ordinary men and women, black and white, were willing to risk and endure to pay that price.-- Civil War History" -- Civil War History

"Bold, imaginative, and important, Griffler's short masterpiece will join the front line of classics on the antislavery movement.-- H-Net Reviews" -- H-Net Reviews

"Griffler's important, well-written account... is part of welcome recent efforts to focus on the role of African Americans in the UGRR.-- Indiana Magazine of History" -- Indiana Magazine of History

"Griffler's book introduces so many vibrant lives and events, transformations and telling details, that by book's end the reader is eager for more, rather than less-again, a welcome change, and an accomplishment of which the author can be proud.-- Journal of American History" -- Journal of American History

"An important work that makes explicit the role African Americans performed in liberating themselves and fellow bondsmen during the antebellum era.-- Journal of Illinois History" -- Journal of Illinois History

"Griffler makes his case well, and in doing so not only offers a necessary corrective to earlier Underground Railroad history but also reminds us that black activity of this sort could not have occurred in a vacuum, the isolated acts of a heroic few.-- Journal of Southern History" -- Journal of Southern History

"Highly informative and engaging.... A must read for all scholars of antebellum America who surely will come away from it with a fresh new perspective on this important aspect of United States history.-- Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society" -- Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

"A well-researched book that explores closely the dynamics of the operation; exactly who helped whom, the logistics involved, the problems encountered, and black settlements in the North.-- Kentucky Monthly" -- Kentucky Monthly

"Well researched and well written. An excellent account of the role of African Americans in the aid given fugitive slaves, as well as the major contribution made by the fugitives themselves in their own liberation.-- Larry Gara, Professor Emeritus of History, Wilmington College and author of The Liberty Line" -- Larry Gara, Professor Emeritus of History, Wilmington College and author of The

"Griffler delves into this little-understood topic to give us a mountain of information.-- Northern Kentucky Heritage" -- Northern Kentucky Heritage

"Introduces readers to a host of Ohio River Valley black abolitionists whose involvement in the Underground Railroad was previously unknown.-- Register of the Kentucky Historical Society" -- Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Redeems a shamefully neglected part of our collective memory. Collecting new and extant oral histories, Dr. Griffler shows that the actual relationship between the races was far richer and more textured than the written record alone would suggest.-- Rita Kohn" -- Rita Kohn

"Griffler's volume excels in presenting an original and extremely useful... interpretation of the origins, character, and growth of the Underground Railroad in this vital region.-- The Historian" -- The Historian

"Griffler has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the role of African Americans in the early formation of the system as well as identified a number of previously underutilized sources.-- West Virginia History" -- West Virginia History

About the Author
Keith P. Griffler is assistant professor of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of What Price Alliance? Black Radicals Confront White Labor and coproducer of the documentary film Wade in the Water.

Customer Reviews

An exciting new look at the Underground Railroad
Even though I know better, like most people, the term "Underground Railroad" conjures the image of white folks rescuing hapless black folks. Griffler believes this is partly because historians have focused too much on the "Railroad" (with its mostly white conductors and stations) and not enough on the "Underground." Without diminishing the interracial aspects, Griffler documents how African American communities created and utilized a vast underground front-line network decades before there was much white involvement. As he states, "Even at its height the Underground Railroad did not entice African Americans to escape; rather, the loosely organized support operation was formed in response to the constant stream of fugitives."

In addition to introducing black freedom fighters like John Parker (a former slave who built a prosperous business in Ripley, Ohio and worked from that base) Griffler crosschecks letters, reminiscences and oral histories against contemporary scholarship to explore the inner workings and attitudes of various participants and societies, providing a fascinating new perspective on things we thought we knew.

In less skilled hands, this book could have been an unwieldy tome, but Griffler packs a wallop in a slim volume. His writing is concise, his narrative smooth, and God bless him, he never belabors a point. I easily rank this as my #1 book of the year, for general readers and academics alike.