Glory Road!
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
GLORY ROAD! is the story of a wacky character, MR. HISTORY, who takes five ethnically-diverse 10-14-year-olds back in time to show them that history is not the boring subject they think, but is actually quite exciting.
The 5 kids and Mr. History play multiple parts in depicting the story of a runaway slave and his son who are led north by Harriet Tubman. They are chased by a slave-catcher in a series of exciting vignettes, and the son is separated from his father and Tubman. These two finally reach the safety of Quakers in Chester, PA, who disguise the slave as a grieving widow in a funeral procession to get him safely onboard a ship bound for Canada. 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.
Years later, the slave father accidentally meets one of the Quakers who had helped him escape, and reveals that he is now well-off, happily married, and enjoying his freedom. The kids are now excited by history upon their return to the present, and Mr. History leaves them to go and find other children to enthrall with his magical time-travellin’.
SONGS: “Glory Road!”; “Go Down, Moses”; “Star”; chase music.