The Film: Interview Transcripts: Diane Miller

Diane Miller, coordinator, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom,
National Park Service, on
The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom
The mission of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program is to preserve and commemorate the history of the Underground Railroad as the beginning of the Civil Rights movement in this country.  We have a three-part program.  One leg of it is education, which we do primarily right now for our web site.  Another leg of it is to provide technical assistance to the community people who are preserving and documenting and interpreting the story of the Underground Railroad, and the third leg of the program is the Network to Freedom itself, which is a network of historic sites, interpretive and educational programs and facilities that are authenticated as being related to the underground railroad.

One of the things that the National Park Service is trying to do with the Network of Freedom Program is place the focus on the enslaved African-Americans who really are at the center of the story.  These are the people who took it upon themselves to take that first step towards freedom and often-times might have made it all the way without much assistance, but it’s really their story and their journey.

The Underground Railroad is such an inspirational story of courage and cooperation and self-determination and the quest for freedom, that I think it was a story that just had to be told.

documenting Underground Railroad stories

freedom and the quest
for human rights