Harriet’s Heirs:Travelers, Historians, Preservationists

Niagara Falls’ “Conductor” Bro. Saladin Allah Shared Family History at Restoration

The weekend-long Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Legacy Tour, presented by Assemblymember Stefani L. Zinerman in conjunction with the Underground Railroad Consortium of New York State earlier this month, was more than an excursion to landmarks of significant value to American History. It was a baptismal immersion, a “transformative” experience involving the mind, body, soul, and heart from the very beginning.

The journey started from Restoration on Harriet Tubman Avenue/Fulton Street on Saturday, March 8, and concluded in Niagara Falls on Monday, March 10, the day nationally observed as Harriet Tubman Day of Commemoration.

The bus wended through at least 8 cities over that weekend, including after Brooklyn, making stops in Haverstraw, Peekskill, Albany, Auburn, Rochester, Buffalo, and, in Canada, Ontario, and St. Catherines, with overnight stopovers in three. It packed in a lot of story-sharing, discussion, tears, prayers and knowledge, but tourgoers, some 40, were prepared for the emotional jaunt of their overground experience. History and Harriet were as close to each passenger as the memories of stories shared at family reunions, dining room tables, church sanctuaries.

The on-the-bus sharing and exchange kicked off pre-weekend, Friday, March 7 evening at the Eric Edwards Cultural Museum of African Art at Restoration. Edwards’ African statues, sculptures, artifacts, and relics, some centuries old, were a staunch, elegant reminder of the regal bearing, grace, strength, and remarkable resilience of our forebears — craft persons, artists, navigators, lovers of nature and humanity — the survivor mentality Harriet Tubman inherited that willed her to bring to freedom some 300 enslaved Africans.

The evening was designed by Zinerman and staff to introduce the Legacy tourists and hosts/guides to each other in an atmosphere that encouraged conversation and musing. Youth dancing and drumming performances inspired the opening of floodgates to lively story-sharing and swapping. Like the entrepreneur, an excellent jewelry maker whose family has owned and resided in Brooklyn brownstone for 99 years.

Tour coordinators, respected builders of underground railroad history centers state-wide, are charged with guiding “travelers” through, literally, tunnels to the past. They, too, caught the spirit.

Guests were entertained by young dancers and drummers’ presentations. The evening was an appropriate precursor to the carefully planned tour — a first of its kind in Brooklyn organized by a political leader. Friday, March 7, was a precursor to the nation’s commemorative Genealogy Day — a good day for a look back into history. Coincidence or not, the organizers of this weekend got it right.

We were all enthralled by the presentation of Bro. Saladin Allah, Director of Community Engagement at the Underground Railroad Heritage Center in Niagara Falls, brought his school-age children with him to Restoration. Bro. Allah, father of three, traces his family history back to a former enslaved African whose life formed the basis of a story by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Maryalice Demler, news anchor at NBC Buffalo affiliate WGRZ, reported Bro. Allah’s story as follows:

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Niagara Falls native Saladin Allah has known his family’s connection to the Underground Railroad since he was a young boy.
“My family definitely grounded me with a sense of cultural competence. I grew up in a household where education, communication, a sense of pride in our ancestry was something that was foundational,” Allah said. “I always had that sense of pride and sense of self and identity as a child growing up. And a sense of responsibility of not only carrying on the legacy and sharing it with the next generation but even taking it further.”
Allah’s grandmother, Inez Dorsey, is a direct descendant of the famous Underground Railroad Freedom Seeker, Josiah Henson.

“Josiah Henson is the central figure that Harriet Beecher Stowe used as a model in her famous 19th-century novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ ” Allah said.
The story details Henson’s harrowing 41-day journey from enslavement in Kentucky to Buffalo, NY, and then across the Niagara River to freedom in Ontario, Canada.
It’s a story Allah learned from his father long before he could have envisioned the decade-long, community-wide effort to design and build a world class heritage museum on the site of the restored 1863 U.S. Custom House. That historic building stands just feet from the Niagara River Gorge, where many a freedom-seeker made passage into Canada.
Allah spoke with 2 On Your Sideabout what he wants visitors to take away from this experience.

“These are everyday people who did extraordinary things, but more importantly, this is our history. You cannot go anywhere else in the world but here and learn about these stories that took place here, in this location. This story is unique, it’s beautiful and we should take pride in it,” Allah said.
Our Time Press notes that according to Face2Face Africa, Mr. Henson helped to free enslaved Africans, “long before the Underground Railroad and established the first Laborers School for fugitive slaves.” Henson was 40 years Harriet Tubman’s senior.

More on Bro. Allah:
“I have worked as a program consultant for the History Channel series ‘Gangland’, and have been globally cited as a subject-matter expert on Jay-Z’s cultural affiliations; a featured historian in the IMA film ‘Into America’s Wild’ narrated by Morgan Freeman; and the six-part award-winning docuseries ‘Enslaved’ executive produced by and starring Samuel L. Jackson.”
Bro. Allah is featured in a United Nations Global Lens episode celebrating the International Day of People of African Descent, and the United Nations International Day for People of African Descent. He is a “subject-matter expert” in The Nature of Things CBC documentary ‘Secrets Agents of the Underground Railroad’, a co-producer/subject matter expert in the two-time Emmy award-winning Abbey Mecca/Buffalo & Erie County Naval Park documentary ‘Two Wars: The Road to Integration”, and a member of the United Nations International Civil Society Working Group for the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. An Adjunct Professor at Niagara University, he is the Founding Director of the Atlantis School For Gifted Youngsters, Founding Director of Quanaah Publishing, and has authored 25 books.