Underground Railroad Coll

The History Channel's documentary on the Underground Railroad remains one of the definitive television documentaries of this very early civil rights movement. After quickly establishing that the Underground Railroad was certainly not a railroad train that literally ran underground, we see that the Underground Railroad was in fact a hodge-podge, "make it up as you go along" way of escaping slavery in the southern United States to freedom in the northern United States.

The documentary gives us great interviews with historians from fine universities including Princeton and Howard University. Together these historians tell stories that enlighten us about what it was like to use the Underground Railroad to escape to freedom. We see that the routes to safety didn't always work--some slaves were caught and either killed on the spot or returned to their masters for brutal treatment. There were bounty hunters everywhere and even if a runaway slave was successful just crossing the Ohio River proved to be a whopping challenge--after all, many people didn't know how to swim at the time.

We also learn of the pivotal roles played by white and black abolitionists including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman during the decades before the civil war; and the re-enactments have acting that simulates rather well what a runaway slave looked like as they made their daring escape to freedom.

There's so much more about the Underground Railroad that is discussed in this fantastic documentary; but I must leave some things out to whet your appetite to watch or buy this awesome film.

The DVD comes with a few extras. The most notable extra is a Biography Channel's episode on the life and times of Frederick Douglass; this 45 minute extra tells us a lot about Frederick Douglass although there are times when the subject matter gets a little too tangential in my opinion.

Overall, this fine documentary about the Underground Railroad can teach many people what it was really like on the risky path to freedom; and we see still photos to add even more of a human touch to the interviews we get with the historians from universities. I highly recommend this for history buffs and for anyone who wishes to study the Underground Railroad, slavery in America and the events leading up to the American Civil War.

This DVD was essentially a collection of stories about the underground railroad. They include most, if not all of the well known railroad "conductors". There was not a whole lot of dramatization, but the stories and the visuals throughout the stories were good enough to keep me occupied and interested throughout.
Stories that they tell include some of the more well known one's, like "boxcar Brown" and they also told some stories that I had not heard (despite going over this period of history 4 times during college, one of which the class was dedicated to the subject of slavery). They also talk a lot about some of the abolitionists and the sentiment of the North and how they aided the escape of numerous slaves.
All in all I really enjoyed the DVD, more than I had anticipated that would. The one criticism that I would make is the glowing portrayal of John Brown. IMO the man was a half-baked nut job and his attack on Harpers Ferry was is not something that should be counted as a positive moment in the anit-slavery movement. They failed to mention that the first man killed in Brown's assault was a black man, a freed slave...
Aside from the John Brown stuff however, it was a great DVD that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in slavery, the Civil War, or just American hitory in general.

This is a very good release by the history channel that sheds some light on the underground railroad. I could care less about the acting in this film because this is a documentary. Most documentaires aren't rated on how the acting is but how the information is conveyed to the masses. I felt this is a good release because it is talking about a lot of people and information that are being neglected universally in the schools of amerikkka. More documentaries about africans and our history need to be produced and fused into all schools around the nation.