Glory Road!

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

In Glory Road! we reenact a slave family’s journey to freedom on the Underground Railroad, and students discover that learning history can be fun!

Five students and Mr. History play multiple parts in depicting the story of a runaway slave and his child who are led north by Harriet Tubman. They are chased by a slave-catcher in a series of exciting vignettes, and the child is separated from the father and Tubman. These two finally reach the safety of Quakers in Chester, PA, who disguise the slave father as a grieving widow in a funeral procession to get him safely onboard a ship bound for Canada. At the last minute, the slave-catcher shows up at the funeral with an affidavit for the slaves’ arrest, but the unexpected return of the lost child, combined with the outrage of the local populace, drives the slave-catcher away, and the slaves go free.

Returning to the present, the students are excited to learn more about history through the magic of time-traveling.