Abolition & the Underground Railroad
When a whole country said this was legal, who said no — and how did they do it?
Why this month matters
This month is full of heroes a child can hold onto: people who, against the full weight of the law, chose courage. It is also where children learn that doing right sometimes means breaking unjust laws — and that ordinary people, Black and white, free and enslaved, built a secret network of conscience across a continent.
The story
The trade in human beings. As cotton spread west, roughly one million enslaved people were sold "down the river," families ripped apart at auction. This brutality fueled a growing movement to end slavery for good.
The abolitionists. Black voices led the way: David Walker's fiery Appeal (1829), Sojourner Truth, Henry Highland Garnet, and above all Frederick Douglass, whose 1845 Narrative let the world hear slavery described by a man who had escaped it. White allies like William Lloyd Garrison printed The Liberator; Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) moved millions.
The Underground Railroad. A secret web of safe houses and guides — "conductors" — carried escapees north to freedom. Harriet Tubman, who freed herself, returned roughly thirteen times to lead some seventy others out, never losing a passenger.
The law fights back. Nat Turner's rebellion (1831) terrified the South into harsher laws. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced even Northerners to help capture the escaped. The Dred Scott decision (1857) declared that Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." John Brown's 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry showed the nation was heading toward war.
This month’s stack
Showing picks for Explorers · Grades 3–5. Free options first, with where to buy or borrow.
Read together
Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award–winning picture book about Tubman's first escape and her calling to return and lead others north. Verified at Hachette publisher page: title, author, illustrator, year 2006 all confirmed. Appropriate for grades 2–5.
Watch
Educational explainer on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad for elementary students. Verified via YouTube oembed API: title 'Harriet Tubman for Kids | Underground Railroad Hero', channel Homeschool Pop.
Listen
Scholastic-produced video narrating Harriet Tubman's journey to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Verified via YouTube oembed API: title 'Harriet Tubman's Escape to Freedom | The Underground Railroad', channel Scholastic.
Do together
Using a blank outline map of the eastern United States, mark the slave states in the South and the free states and Canada to the North. Draw a dotted 'freedom trail' from Maryland (where Tubman was enslaved) north to Philadelphia and Canada. Mark three 'stations' along the route and write one danger a freedom seeker might face at each. Discuss: Why did people travel at night? What did the North Star mean to freedom seekers?
Talk about it
- The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad. Why do you think people used that secret language? What might have happened if slaveholders had understood the code?
- Harriet Tubman said she 'never ran my train off the track and never lost a passenger.' What does that tell you about her as a leader?
- Why did some free Black people in the North and white people risk their own safety to help enslaved people escape? What would you have done?
The throughline
When the law itself was the crime, abolitionists — Black and white — answered with the oldest form of resistance: helping one person, then the next, get free. "Each one, teach one" and "each one, free one" were the same spirit.