The Film: Interview Transcripts: John Ford

John Ford, historian and school programs director, Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, on dialogue between the races

It’s important to document the Underground Railroad for the sake of history.  But it’s also important to us as a contemporary society.  It’s important for us because it includes a portion of our history when there was goodness in Africans and there was goodness in Europeans who cooperated together.  The Underground Railroad creates dialogue between the races, and once you have that dialogue, you can best understand what you need to do today in order to solve some of the crises we face as a nation.

Martin Delaney and
Charles Avery

Pittsburgh’s black population

communication within the
African-American community

proving Vasco da Gama wrong

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