FLIGHT TO FREEDOM

Henrietta Buckmaster, a distinguished author of books for both children and adults, projects in her history of the underground railroad, not only a sense of epic heroism, but a climate of personal liberty which, in the nineteenth century, pervaded a great portion of the western world. From its roots in the non-violent Quaker communities, the underground railroad spread to many areas of the country where self-respecting men lived. And as it spread it grew and changed character, culminating in the Civil War. Told through the lives of the men who participated in it, this history of the railroad stresses both the Negro and white contributions and presents the move to abolition, not as a self-righteous act of philanthropy, but as an integral expression of a government bent on preserving democratic values. Without departing from fact, Henrietta Buckmaster's depiction is as dramatic as it is informative.