GVSU hosts Underground Railroad Conference

Grand Valley State University will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission and the National Network to Freedom with a conference in September. The theme of the conference will be: "Underground Railroad in Michigan: A Decade of Discoveries."
 
The National Network to Freedom and the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission were created to recover, document, and commemorate the history of the Underground Railroad and resistance to slavery in America and internationally. The conference will be Sept. 26-27 in Grand Valley's DeVos Center in Grand Rapids. Registration is $50, or $25 for students. After Sept. 5, the registration fee is $75. For more information, call (616) 331-8109 or visit www.gvsu.edu/ugrrdecade .

The keynote speakers include:
-- Christopher Paul Curtis, internationally acclaimed children's author and winner of the Newberry Book Award for Bud Not Buddy and his latest, Elijah of Buxton , an underground railroad story for youth. 

-- Betty DeRamus, author of Forbidden Fruit Love Stories from the Underground Railroad and a second book on the Underground Railroad slated for publication in 2008

-- Karolyn Smardz Frost, archaeologist and author of the award winning chronicle of one slave couple's escape from Louisville, Kentucky through Michigan to freedom in Toronto titled I've Got a Home in Glory Land

-- Anna-Lisa Cox, author of A Stronger Kinship , a history of an interracial Michigan community formed in the aftermath of the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movements. 

There will also be presentations by scholars and local custodians of Underground Railroad history. The conference will gather academic and amateur researchers from throughout Michigan and surrounding states, faculty and students of history at Grand Valley and other colleges and universities in the area, public school teachers in surrounding counties, and the interested public.

The conference is hosted by Grand Valley's African and African American Studies program, in collaboration with the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission, the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership.