Am I Not a Man and a Brother? - Abolitionist Slogan.

They trusted their lives to 'conductors' who they had never met and would never see again. They hid from bounty hunters and bloodhounds in the secret chambers of safe houses. One by one, for more than a century, thousands of slaves made the dangerous journey to freedom on the Underground Railroad. America's first civil rights movement was a loose network of diverse people bound together by conscience, determined to undo the institution of slavery one person at a time. "Conductors" risked fines and imprisonment in their devotion to the case of freedom, "passengers" risked their lives.

Three programs in this important collection explore the world of America's first civil rights movement.

The Underground Railroad
Alfre Woodard (Down in the Delta) hosts an in-depth examination of the secret network of free blacks, fugitive slaves and whites of conscience who helped runaway slaves escape bondage. Ships of Slaves

The Middle Passage
Rare diaries, oral histories and testimony from scholars like Dr. Howard Jones, author of Mutiny on the Amistad, illuminate the 400-year trade that brought millions of kidnapped Africans to the New World.

'Biography®'
Frederick Douglass - The landmark series profiles the 'recent graduate of slavery with his diploma on his back' who became the pre-eminent voice of the abolitionist movement.

Hosted by Alfre Woodard (Passion Fish, Crooklyn,) "Underground Railroad traces the journey to freedom taken by countless slaves, showing how they were guided, protected, and pursued along the way. The extraordinary story is told through historical documents, visits to important sites, interviews with the decendants of noted abolitionists and commentary from experts like Ed Rigaud, the president of the National Underground Freedom Center.