History That Never Happened

Stories about the Underground Railroad are under attack

By Marc Aronson -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2007

If you’re a regular reader of the New York Times or Read Roger, a blog by The Horn Book’s Roger Sutton, you may have heard about the recent hubbub surrounding the Underground Railroad. “Few aspects of the American past have inspired more colorful mythology than the Underground Railroad,” writes Fergus Bordewich in a Times Op-Ed piece on February 2. “But faked history serves no one, especially when it buries important truths that have been hidden far too long,” adds Bordewich, the author of Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (Amistad, 2005).

Among the myths that he dispels are the familiar stories about “freedom quilts”—quilts that contained coded maps that African-American slaves followed to freedom. As it turns out, says Bordewich, the quilts are a complete fabrication. They first appeared in a 1980s children’s book (which, unfortunately, he fails to identify). Bordewich’s claim comes at a time when there has been talk in New York City of “honoring” those who created the quilts. But to celebrate artifacts that never existed would be like putting up a plaque to honor the cherry tree that George Washington never chopped down.

Many of us who write or edit kids’ books had assumed that at least some of these stories were true. Until recently, I wasn’t aware of the new studies that challenge the authenticity of some of the Underground Railroad’s best-known “facts,” such as “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” an anthem that was thought to be sung by Harriet Tubman as she helped slaves escape. The ballad was actually published in 1928, long after the days of the Underground Railroad.

New scholarship is always questioning our old assumptions—that’s what’s so great about it. As library professor Betty Carter pointed out in a review of The Magic School Bus and the Science Fair Expedition (Scholastic, 2006) in The Horn Book, even though the volume includes some dated information (it was published before Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a “dwarf planet”), it’s still a wonderful book. After all, the goal of titles like these is to encourage kids to think and explore issues on their own. Books shouldn’t be condemned because they don’t always include the latest discoveries or insights. Instead, they should be praised for communicating the best information available to their writers.

I don’t think the existing books about the Underground Railroad need to be pruned from library shelves nationwide. But I do think that parents, librarians, and teachers need to tell young readers that exciting new studies have added to and, in some cases, radically changed our understanding of this important topic.

I feel bad that I’ve been reluctant at times to question stories of slavery and the Underground Railroad. When I was editing one of Nikki Giovanni’s books, she mentioned that sharks and land predators had changed their traditional routes to follow the slave trade in Africa. I was skeptical, but I didn’t tell Nikki that. I checked with an expert, who confirmed what she had said—and then I told her about it.

Based on my own experience, I don’t think the problem with kids’ books is about accuracy or scholarship—it’s a fear of being seen as racist, insensitive, and closed-minded. All too often, we are willing to accept a nice story if it seems to “honor” those who have often been disparaged. But who knows what the next round of scholarship will reveal? Maybe some enterprising researcher will discover that there was actually an earlier version of “Follow the Drinking Gourd”—one that was sung by escaping slaves. In the meantime, our obligation to young readers is to pay attention to our own doubts, to be forthright skeptics. It’s up to the next generation of scholars to prove us wrong.