While the exhibit is hosted at the Macomb Carnegie Library, 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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Pathway To Freedom: Illinois’ McDonough County Underground Railroad

October 5, 2024 at 4 PM at Macomb Carnegie Library

Historically overlooked and undocumented, McDonough County’s role in the Underground Railroad in western Illinois comes to light in this historical presentation. In conjunction with the Unforgettable Forgottonia tourism office, Elisha Szyjka has worked to document the county’s sites through the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program. Through this effort, sites/individuals in McDonough County are gaining national recognition for their part in supporting the Underground Railroad. The county’s known station masters and stops, as part of the Quincy Line that extended from Quincy, Illinois, northward to Galesburg, Illinois, are of historical significance and will be discussed

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Songs of the Freedom Road

October 20, 2024 3 PM at the Macomb Arts Center 25 East Side Square, Macomb, IL

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

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.

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