As the United States prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of its founding, historian Anthony Cohen is setting out on a 750-mile journey meant to connect Americans with a defining chapter of the nation’s past.
Cohen, 62, is following ground once tied to the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network of routes and safe places used by thousands of enslaved people who fled bondage in search of freedom, many of them making their way to Canada.
Cohen, a historian, first retraced part of the Underground Railroad in 1996, traveling from his home state of Maryland to Ontario, Canada. In the years since, he founded the Menare Foundation, an organization that uses immersive, history-based programming to educate the public about the Underground Railroad and the people who risked everything along it.
For America’s 250th anniversary, Cohen wanted to bring renewed attention to the danger, courage and determination embedded in that history. This time, he selected a route from Sandy Spring, Maryland, to Toronto, piecing it together with what he described as “a lot of historic maps” and firsthand historical accounts. He calls the journey the “Freedom Walk.”
The route has carried him through Delaware, New Jersey and New York. Much of the trek has been completed on foot, though Cohen has also used other forms of transportation when appropriate, including a train into upstate New York that closely mirrors the historic path.
“Any freedom movement is about putting one foot in front of the other and going for it,” Cohen said.
Cohen is not making the journey in isolation. The Menare Foundation published a list of scheduled stops, giving communities along the way a chance to meet him, hear about the history behind the route and engage with the purpose of the walk. The Harriet Tubman Journey to Freedom statue is also traveling with the group.
He also invited author Tom DeWolf, whose ancestors were part of what was once the largest slave-trading family in the United States, to join him on the walk.
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“I said, ‘But I’m a White guy,'” DeWolf said. “And he said, ‘White people, White people helped.’ And then he said ‘You can write a new legacy for your family.'”
At events, Cohen and DeWolf are speaking about the history of the slave trade, the Underground Railroad and the walk itself.
Cohen will cross into Canada on July 1. He is slated to arrive in Toronto and complete his journey on July 4, just in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States.
