On one of the
best parts of a city’s history, and its echo in a contemporary moment.
My last couple
posts have focused quite a bit on negative aspects of Harrisburg, at least in
its present situation and issues. That’s of course connected to the kinds of
struggles facing American cities more generally, ones embodied quite clearly in
Harrisburg’s recent and ongoing challenges. But while no AmericanStudier can or
should ignore those difficult present realities, it’d be equally reductive and
inaccurate to think about Harrisburg or any American city through only (or even
primarily) that lens. The truth, as I hope this week’s series has illustrated,
is that our cities are full of complex but also rich and meaningful histories
and stories, and that they too inform and contribute to and help shape the
present and future of these American spaces.
In Harrisburg, as
in many Northern cities and communities, one prominent but also easily
overlooked such history is that of the Underground Railroad. As best I can
tell, the city’s significant role in that vital network is represented by a single
Historical Marker, located near the Capitol building and highlighting how by
1850 the nearby Tanner’s
Alley (or Tanner’s Lane) neighborhood housed much of the city’s sizeable
African American community (about 12 percent of the 1850 population) and became
the site of these abolitionist activities. As was usually the case, the city’s
Underground Railroad depended on a combination of local African American
leaders (such as Joseph
Bustill and William
“Pap” Jones in Harrisburg), regional African American abolitionists (such
as Philadelphia’s
William Still), and on a network of sympathetic white supporters (such as Daniel
Kaufman and Stephen Weakly in this area of Pennsylvania), making it a truly
communal activist history.
The timing of my
visit to Harrisburg in October happened to coincide with the 2013
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk, which started and ended on the
beautiful City Island in the Susquehanna River. I walked down from my hotel and
along the river the morning of the walk and saw the sizeable crowds gathering
for the event, and I was particularly struck by both their numbers (downtown
Harrisburg felt a little quieter than I expected otherwise) and their diversity
(in a city that, like most American urban spaces these days, feels racially and
ethnically segregated to a degree). Harrisburg is of course not alone in
featuring such walks—quite the opposite, they can
be found in virtually every American city—and I suppose that’s precisely my
point: genuinely communal activism, the kind that unites us across all sorts of
arbitrary boundaries and differences, is alive and well, in Harrisburg as in
America more generally. No matter how bleak things might seem at times, for our
cities and for our nation, we would do well to remember and highlight such
activisms, past and present.
Final Harrisburg
history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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