Monday, April 26, 1999

Ky. sites for slave escapes recounted

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Covington-Cincinnati a well-used crossing

BY SUSAN VELA
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        COVINGTON — The Kentucky side of the Ohio River once had at least 10 points where slaves would venture before daring passage across the river and into the free states of Indiana and Ohio.

        About 600 slaves a year escaped successfully from Kentucky sites such as Paducah, Louisville, Covington and Maysville. Those who didn't succeed faced horrible beatings and death.

        “That's a pretty steady flow, (but) the risk was real. Very real,” said J. Blaine Hudson, an assistant professor at University of Louisville and the guest speaker Sunday at a program organized by the Northern Kentucky African American Heritage Task Force.

        About 60 people gathered at the Northern Kentucky Community Cen ter Auditorium to hear his speech and the a cappella gospel music of the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood, a Covington-based quintet.

        Audience member Marilyn Smith of Covington said she learned some things about the Underground Railroad — and Kentucky's role in it.

        Mr. Hudson, a member of U of L's Pan African Studies Department, opened by noting that the hundreds of thousands of slaves who escaped into freedom had to get there from somewhere. For those who made it to Cincinnati, that often meant crossing the Ohio River. And, for those from Alabama, Tennessee or Georgia, “the goal always was the Ohio River.”

        Mr. Hudson called the Covington-Cincinnati passage the Underground Railroad's Grand Central Station, but he noted that Kentucky's role in the railroad is largely underestimated.

        That's because Kentucky became more Southern after the Civil War, he said, which resulted in many Kentuckians keeping their Underground Railroad ties under wraps.

        “What started underground had a tendency to stay underground.”

       

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