Educational Media Reviews Online

Safe Harbor looks at some of the places and personalities involved in Pennsylvania’s anti-slavery movement in the years leading up to the Civil War. The program explains how western Pennsylvania’s geography made it a center for Underground Railroad activity and profiles several prominent abolitionists who were active in Pennsylvania, emphasizing that people from all walks of life worked for the Underground Railroad in a common struggle for civil rights.

In addition to white abolitionists such as John Brown, Safe Harbor tells the stories of several free Blacks who helped fugitive slaves make their homes in the northern U.S. or flee to Canada. Featured African American abolitionists include Hamilton Walters, a partially blind slave who purchased his own freedom (and whose grandson, composer Harry T. Burleigh, would become known for arranging the spirituals he had learned from Waters), and Robert Vosburgh, an Erie, Pennsylvania barber who helped runaway slaves change their hair and clothing in his shop before they traveled further north.

The producers intended Safe Harbor as a look beyond thrilling or romantic portrayals of the Underground Railroad, presenting a less-often studied African American point of view. Safe Harbor also shows that the anti-slavery movement united people across differences in race, gender, wealth, social background or religious faith; and that ordinary people risked violence, financial hardship and imprisonment to participate in what was essentially an illegal activist network.

The DVD’s special features include additional commentary from historians on several topics: documentary evidence of slaveholders’ attempts to find runaway slaves; slavery in Pennsylvania; blacks and whites opposing slavery together; why Pittsburgh was a safe haven for fugitives; the difficulty of crossing Lake Erie into Canada; how slaves’ plans and stories were recorded in quilt patterns; and traditional African American spirituals. Also included are brief performances (DVD recordings without visuals) of four traditional songs including “Follow the Drinking Gourd.”

The film’s production levels are high. Narration by storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston and historians’ comments are copiously illustrated with archival photographs, maps and other documents, as well as brief (wordless) dramatizations.

Safe Harbor’s stories, photographs, quotes, incidents and situations are presented without a continuous narrative thread and occasionally out of chronological order. However, the program’s breadth of topics should appeal to students and provide several possible starting points for further research. Although the program focuses on western Pennsylvania, its primary theme (ordinary people can work together for social and political change) is universal. It is recommended for use in history and African American history programs.