A national expert on the Underground Railroad said residents here need to work at promoting the area's role in the network.
Although Douglas County has a "treasure" with its Underground Railroad history and sites, local activists should work to get the word out about it, a national expert said.
"You have got something here that the rest of the country doesn't know about," said Addie Richburg, executive director of the International Network to Freedom Assn. of Washington D.C.
"I had never heard of such a rich history in Kansas until I came here," she said.
Richburg made the comments during a talk Tuesday night at the Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass. About 30 people attended.
She told the crowd that other states already have passed legislation that would create commissions to help preserve and develop education programs on the Underground Railroad.
She said residents here should do the same.
"You have to get your legislators to own up to this history," she said.
The Underground Railroad was a series of safehouses and other hiding places for slaves seeking to go from slave states to northern states or to Canada before and during the Civil War.
About 20 such sites have been identified in Douglas County by area historians.
Richburg said, however, that Underground Railroad history efforts have become highly political.
She said a group of organizers in Cincinnati, with the backing of Procter and Gamble Co., are planning to build a multimillion-dollar national Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
But she said the center's organizers have made many grassroots organizations, historians and genealogists across the country angry because they weren't contacted for input.
"I do not oppose their desire to build a national Underground Railroad Freedom Center but I oppose efforts to do so when you exclude people who have been working on this for years," she said.
Richburg's organization sponsors several programs, including retracing Underground Railroad routes, high school programs with re-enactors and an annual national conference.
"You cannot imagine the craze that is going on with the Underground Railroad now," she said.
-- Michael Dekker's phone message number is 832-7187. His e-mail address is mdekker@ljworld.com.
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