Celebrating Juneteenth with Canadian history
Editor’s note: The following travel post was originally written and published in the Chicago Tribune by Shamontiel L. Vaughn on June 9, 2011. While the link works, Shamontiel’s byline was removed and is now behind a paywall.
Let’s plan our next Juneteenth together! (Click here for more Chicago Tribune writing clips by Shamontiel.)
February isn’t the only time to celebrate black history, and the importance of June 19 is a prime example of why. Juneteenth* is just around the corner, and trips like these are a great way to explore the U.S. and Canada’s natural and educational history.
Recommended Read: “For the culture: How travel can be the best history lesson ~ Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Native American history, other lessons learned in Canada”
On a memorable black history tour I took a few years ago, I explored the “follow the moss” connection between the U.S. and Canada. The route taken from Chicago to Canada was in the same direction slaves took, by following the moss on the trees until they arrived north.
The route:
1. Chicago to the Underground Railroad Sculpture in Battle Creek, MI.
2. Railroad Sculpture to the Motown Museum in Detroit, MI.
3. Travel from Michigan to Ontario Canada where Uncle Tom’s Cabin is located; We found out the inaccuracies and accuracies of the Harriet Beecher Stowe book by the same name.
4. The Crossing at Bertie Hall along the Canadian Shore, where slaves would frequently stop to rest and hide in the basement
5. Parliament Oak School 325 where the anti-slavery act was passed by the first Parliament of Upper Canada into law in 1793
6. Brock Monumentoff at the Niagara Parkway to see the Colored Corps Plaque
7. St. Catharine’s Museum at Lock 3 in Ontario
8. Burns Grave Site in Ontario where Anthony Burns was listed as the last person to be tried under the Fugitive Slave Act. His return is documented as the cause of the Boston riots in 1854. Boston abolitionists bought his freedom, and Burns later became the founder and pastor of Zion Baptist Church.
9. The British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church in Ontario, which was Harriet Tubman’s last stop on the Underground Railroad
10. The Lockport Station, one of the stops on the Underground Railroad
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* According to Juneteenth.com, Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of U.S. slavery. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and slaves were free. This was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
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