My Journey to the Underground

By Da’Nelle Mason, at Age 9

It’s not everyday that a person gets to go back into the past. On February 28, 1998 I did that and experienced things I never thought I would ever experience.
I got to travel to Peekskill, New York, as an Our Time Press junior reporter, to participate in a “Sisters in the Spirit” event. It was in honor of Harriet Tubman.

One of the activities was a tour of a station on the Underground Railroad. I was excited about it because I could walk in the path of a woman I admire, Harriet Tubman, the great conductor. It started like this:
Hundreds of us met in front of The Fern Tree African-American Gift Shop and walked over to the historic Park Street AME Church, and went inside twenty at a time because it was very small and very old.

Downstairs, guides showed us where the (enslaved) hid and described how the church protected them. One of the women guides told us that the Black people probably traveled along a stream that was underneath the church. But no one knew where it was exactly.
Outside the church, a group of teenage reporters from Harlem Live! went to an open gutter, looked in with a flashlight, and saw gushing water. One of the writers held his tape recorder down through the iron bars. It was the sound of history.

Actress Gloria Terrell portrayed Harriet Tubman in front of a large estate once owned by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother. Ms. Terrell was excellent! We were mesmerized by her. She became Harriet Tubman.

Then we were guided down a steep hill and crouched down to walk through a long tunnel. The entrance was covered by tree branches. It was cold and dark, and even with 300 people going through the tunnel that day, it was still scary.

There were rocks, spiders, and water droplets. My father (Barry Mason, who took the pictures) told me to feel the rocks and the stones and to wet my cheek with the water. He said I would always remember the experience. It was dark in the tunnel. I brought my flashlight, but our ancestors did not have that back then.

Finally, we came to the opening, which was very narrow and small. Some of us got on our knees and crawled and wiggled through, but we didn’t care because we could see the light, and we were glad to see it! Some of the adults said they felt they were “emerging” from the womb. They said they would never be the same.

It was a wonderful thing for us to see what our ancestors had to go through to survive. They would stay in these caves by day, hoping and praying bounty hunters would not catch up with them. Then they traveled by night. Everything was dark for them except the stars
A week later, I went to a meeting at the Harriet Tubman Learning Center in Harlem. My father introduced me to a modern-day Harriet Tubman. Her name was Ms. Viola Plummer of Sistas Place in Brooklyn. We took pictures together.
To find out about Harriet Tubman, place her name in any search engine.