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The Film:
About the Participants
NARRATOR
Safe Harbor
is narrated by Charlotte Blake Alston, a Philadelphia-based
African American storyteller. Her strong, steady voice is like a
lantern in the darkness, bringing clarity to a legend that was lost
over time. A recipient of the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts
(1994) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Artist of the Year Award
(1997), Charlotte brings stories and songs to festivals, schools,
universities, museums, libraries and performing arts centers
throughout the United States and Canada. She performs regularly with
the Philadelphia Orchestra, hosts Carnegie Hall’s preschool concert
series and has been a featured artist on the Carnegie Hall Family
Concert Series in New York since 1996.
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Charles Kennedy
Jr.
created orchestrations for the original score and directed music
production. Spirituals arranged by Harry T. Burleigh, a
turn-of-the-century composer whose grandfather was a former slave and
conductor on the Underground Railroad, together with other traditional
songs, provide a rich layer of storytelling throughout the program.
Kennedy, who also serves as the character voice for Harry T. Burleigh,
earned his master’s degree in vocal performance from Fredonia State
University in New York. He authored and produced a solo musical
drama,
Deep River, the Burleigh Legacy,
and is currently touring with his dinner theatre program, From
Abolition to Freedom.
SCHOLARS
Charles L.
Blockson,
whose great-grandfather, an enslaved African, escaped to Canada on the
Underground Railroad, is a preeminent historian, lecturer and author
of several groundbreaking books about the Underground Railroad in
Pennsylvania. He is co-founder of the African History Museum in
Philadelphia and founding member of the Pennsylvania Historical and
Museum Commission’s Black History Advisory Committee. As chair of the
National Underground Railroad Advisory Committee, he worked to bring
about the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act in
1998. The Act instructed the National Park Service to partner with
community groups to develop interpretive programs that would tell a
richer, better-connected story of America’s first civil rights
movement. The producers spent many hours in the Charles L. Blockson
collection housed at Temple University, one of the nation’s leading
research facilities for the study of history and culture of people of
African descent.
Atty. John Burt,
a
Pittsburgh historian and abolitionist tour guide, provided context on
larger social issues surrounding the Underground Railroad. A
consummate storyteller, he dramatized critical turning points in the
anti-slavery movement and contributed to a special Pittsburgh segment
for the documentary’s companion web site and DVD. He is an adjunct
professor in the Political Science Department at LaRoche College in
Pittsburgh and serves as a member of the Pennsylvania Humanities
Council’s Commonwealth Speakers program. Atty. Burt is the author of
numerous articles and professional papers, many of them about peace
and justice. In May, 2000 he received an award from the Pennsylvania
Bar Association for outstanding pro bono legal work.
Raymond G. Dobard,
Ph.D.
is a Professor of Art and Art History at Howard University and Author
of Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the
Underground Railroad. An accomplished quilter, he has demonstrated
quilting techniques at the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of
American Art and the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum. Dr.
Dobard discussed the importance of verbal and non-verbal
symbols in African-American culture and encouraged the preservation of
stories passed down through generations. He describes the secret
codes hidden in quilts on the companion DVD.
John Louis Ford,
historian and School
Programs Manager at the Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional
History Center, is an passionate collector of primary documents and
African objects. In addition to developing programs and exhibits on
the Underground Railroad, he lectures widely on contemporary issues
and social history. Ford is an adjunct professor of African and
African-American history at the Community College of Allegheny County
and serves on the advisory board for the Historical Society of Western
Pennsylvania. He was a three-time award-winning talk show host for
WCXJ AM Radio in Pittsburgh.
David Frew, Ph.D.,
was
recently appointed Executive Director of the Erie County Historical
Society and Museums after a distinguished career in teaching and
administration at Gannon University. An avid sailor and an author
with more than 20 books and 100 articles to his credit, his
publications run the gamut in popular magazines such as Cruising
World and Sail. His books on maritime history of Central
Lake Erie have won regional and national awards.
Roland Barksdale
Hall,
Mercer County, Pennsylvania historian and author of Freedom Road
Revisited: Communities of Sanctuary in Mercer County, Pennsylvania,
reveals new information about free black communities and their
role in the Underground Railroad. He quietly raises an early story of
what could be considered reparations within the segment on “The
Promised Land.”
LeRoy T. Hopkins,
Ph.D.,
is chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Millersville State
University and a founding member of the Black History Advisory
Committee of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Dr.
Hopkins offered commentary on gradual abolition and role of black
church and suggests parallels for doing what’s right in today’s
society.
James Oliver
Horton, Ph.D.,
historian and professor at George Washington University, is also
director of the Afro-American Communities Project for the National
Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution. He served
on the White House Millennium Council “Save America’s Treasures”
project and is an advisor to the National Underground Railroad Freedom
Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Horton is the author of more than
nine books, including In Hope of Liberty, press nominee for the
Pulitzer Prize. His exceptional interview provides insight on the
value of freedom, inter-racial cooperation and civic responsibility.
Karen James,
an historian with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,
has been documenting the lives of African Americans in Pennsylvania
for more than a decade. She is the author of “Finding the History
among Us,” in Journey from Jerusalem, and coauthor of
“Digging up Bones: African Americans in Erie, 1800-1830,” published
in The Journal of Erie Studies. Through persistent research and
public presentations, Karen is discovering new evidence of free black
communities and their role in the Underground Railroad. She is
organizing a statewide network dedicated to Underground Railroad
documentation and programming.
W. Thomas
Mainwaring, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor of History, Washington and Jefferson University,
has lectured widely on the subject of the Underground Railroad,
including presentations on “The Mythology of the Underground Railroad
in Western Pennsylvania,” and “Abandoned Tracks: the Underground
Railroad in Washington County.” Dr. Mainwaring provided behind the
scenes consultation and script review.
Diane Miller,
National Coordinator of the National Underground Railroad Network to
Freedom for the National Park Service, provided commentary on the
importance of historic preservation. Miller speaks from experience,
having worked closely with the National Register of Historic Places
and state historic preservation offices since 1984. She holds dual
bachelor’s degrees in history and anthropology, and a master’s degree
in history with a focus in African American history.
Captain Walter
Rybka
speaks from experience when he describes the life of a sailor aboard a
nineteenth century sailing vessel. The Senior Captain of the
U.S. Brig Niagara and Program Director for the Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission’s Erie Maritime Museum, he has been a
shipmaster for many years, specializing in the operation and
preservation of historic sailing vessels. Even after managing sailing
programs in Texas, California, Massachusetts, New York and
Pennsylvania, he considers himself both a student and teacher of
traditional maritime skills.
Loren Schweninger,
Ph.D.
is a professor of history at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro and co-author with John Hope Franklin, of
Runaway Slaves, Winner of the 2000 Lincoln Prize. Director and
editor of the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, he shared
groundbreaking research on the nature of resistance to slavery and
helped the producers interpret primary documents.
Jean E. Snyder,
Ph.D.,
a professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, has focused on the
life and works of African-American composer Harry T. Burleigh and the
American art song for more than a decade. Her publications include
essays on Burleigh in the International Dictionary of Black
Composers, 1999; and "'A Great and Noble School of Music':
Dvorak, Burleigh and the African-American Spiritual," in Dvorak in
America, 1892-1895,
ed. John Tibbetts, 1993. She is currently preparing her book on
Burleigh for publication. Jean’s commentary on the spirituals is a
special feature found only on the Safe Harbor DVD and companion
web site.
Tracey Weis, Ph.D.,
Professor of History at Millersville State University, assisted the
producers in developing related multi-media content for schools. Dr.
Weis is coordinating the American Social History Project at
Millersville University, one of six regional centers in the United
States selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities to
develop multi-media instruction in the humanities.
Greg Wilson,
an
Underground Railroad historian and author of A Sojourner’s Sketch
of Sugar Grove, is the descendant of abolitionists. His family
letters, diaries, photographs and scrapbooks provide a rare,
first-hand account of the Underground Railroad.
PRODUCERS
Main Street Media,
Inc.
For
more than 25 years, Lisa and Rich
Gensheimer have
worked as researchers, writers, videographers and editors for both
print publications and broadcast-quality video programs. Known for
their creative energy, resourcefulness and dependability, this
husband-and-wife team has completed hundreds of productions on time
and on budget for corporations, foundations and non-profit
organizations.
Their next
documentary, already in production, is Tracks Across the Sky, a
program about the Kinzua Viaduct, a National Historic Site and Civil
Engineering Landmark.
DIRECTOR
Mike Sparks
is an accomplished producer, director and editor, having worked in the
video production business since 1982. He was production manager for
a communications center and supervised the design and building of a
new independent UHF television station where he was responsible for
on-air operations, satellite acquisitions, studio and remote
production. He was production manager and chief editor at Parrot
Productions before joining the corporate communications department of
a major insurance company in 1992. He currently serves as the
company’s producer, director/photographer, off-line and on-line editor
for innovative video and DVD projects.
In his “off” time,
Mike teams up with Main Street Media to produce documentaries and
multi-media programming. He has studied “Electronic Cinematography”
and “Directing Corporate Video” at the International Film and
Television Workshops in Rockport Maine. A recipient of the level II
editor certification from the National Institute for the Study of
Digital Media (NISDM), he is one of only 14 people in the world who
have been granted the NISDM’s Media 100 training certification.
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