While the exhibit is hosted in Jacksonville, there are numerous programs to expand the city’s Underground Railroad story in the community. Take advantage of the wonderful opportunities noted below.

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Songs of the Illinois Freedom Road
with Chris Vallillo

April 11th, 6 pm
Performance at:
The Chapel
428 E College Ave, Jacksonville, IL

Songs of the Illinois Freedom Road is the powerful new musical performance featuring the songs, stories, and struggles of the Illinois Underground Railroad. 

The show features rare first-person accounts of freedom seekers who passed through Illinois. Highlighted stories include John and Mary Little, who traveled on foot 140 miles to Chicago, and George Burroughs, a black Canadian who worked on the Illinois Central Railroad where he helped smuggle escapees to freedom.

Vallillo extensively researched the subject using primary source documents such as the 1857 Slave Narratives of Canada and the WPA Slave Narratives as well as the most recent scholarship on the subject. Vallillo combines these powerful stories with eleven historic songs that were sung by the enslaved to inspire and share knowledge among themselves
There is no cost to attend the performance, and no reservations are required. This event is partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

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Priscilla “Mother” Baltimore,
“The Harriet Tubman of the Midwest”
by Kathryn Harris

May 9, 6 pm
Performance at:
Centenary United Methodist Church
331 East State Street, Jacksonville (next door to the museum)

Kathryn Harris will engage the audience in a portrayal of Priscilla Baltimore. Priscilla was born in Kentucky. Her father sold her to another Methodist minister from St. Louis, Missouri, where she purchased her freedom. In 1825, she took eleven families to a meeting near Brooklyn, Illinois. She founded Freedom Town, which became an Underground Railroad station, and became a route from St. Louis, Missouri, through Jersey County, Illinois. After leading more than 300 people to freedom, many through Rocky Fork, Priscilla Baltimore is known as” The Moses of the West.”

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Panel Discussion
with historian Brian Mitchell

June 19, TBA

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“Walk with Heroes”
Cemetery tour of UGRR Conductors
with Chad Boehlke

July 11, 6 pm
Diamond Grove Cemetery
1601 Lincoln Rd, Jacksonville, IL
Rain Date: July 18, 6 pm

Join Chad Boehlke on a guided walking tour of the final resting place of the many Underground Railroad Conductors of Jacksonville who helped many Freedom Seekers on the road to freedom. Please dress for the weather and bring water.