Angelina Community Theater will perform the greatest collaboration against racism in American history before the Civil Rights Movement was the Underground Railroad, in which persons of all ethnic backgrounds and of both sexes from North and South came together to resist the oppression of slavery by helping escaped slaves make their way to free territory in the years before the Civil War.
Oh Freedom! The Story of the Underground Railroad celebrates this collaboration combining the stories of the men and women who were active in the fight against slavery with songs of the period. Famous participants like Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe are here. So are lesser known heroes of the movement like John Rankin, whose house on a hill above the Ohio River was a beacon for freedom for many escaping bondage; the mysterious “Peg Leg” Joe, who moved among the plantations teaching slaves to escape and “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” a song designed to show them the way; and Henry “Box” Brown, who had himself put in a box and mailed to freedom by general post!
Oh Freedom! inspires us all to work together for the good of all as it celebrates a time when Americans were at their courageous best, supporting one another, regardless of background, ethnicity or gender, in the cause to extend to all Americans our greatest, most inalienable right: to be free.
Grades: 5-12
Curriculum Connections: History, Social Studies, English & Music
