An enslaved married couple, the Crafts found their way to freedom through multiple modes of transportation and by hiding in plain sight, Ellen posing as a white male planter and William as her enslaved companions.

The film centers around William and Ellen Craft’s passage to freedom, meticulously documented in Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom. An enslaved married couple, the Crafts found their way to freedom through multiple modes of transportation and by hiding in plain sight, Ellen posing as a white male planter and William as her enslaved companion.

The film covers the more widely known and celebrated Freedom Seekers as well as unnamed others who created and executed covert operations to move themselves and others out of the perils of enslavement. It also examines how enslaved people in America defined freedom for themselves and others, some while still remaining enslaved themselves.

Starting in the Port of Savannah, Georgia, and ending at the Washington Avenue Pier in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the film follows the various paths and places of refuge through multiple scenes and sheds light on the steps Freedom Seekers took to find freedom.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: THE PATHS & PLACES OF REFUGE recognizes this important, often minimized part of American history, highlighting the caretakers who helped preserve the spaces that provided shelter and safe passage to so many revolutionary Americans. Guiding voices — historians, caretakers and descendants of the enslaved people who moved to freedom — help viewers visualize the many paths used to find freedom.