Our Daily Show Interview! Eric Robinson: Underground Railroad Tour With Jared on 2-20
GODFREY - Community members are invited to a free tour of the Riverbend’s Underground Railroad stops.
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From 1–3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, Eric Robinson and Jared Hennings will provide a bus tour of important locations in the Alton-Godfrey region. The tour will start at Lewis and Clark Community College, and Robinson and Hennings will provide information about each stop and how enslaved people navigated the Underground Railroad. Call Hennings at 618-468-6400 to make a reservation.
“It’s a free tour paid for by your tax dollars,” Robinson joked. “You get the great benefit of seeing Jared without makeup and no teeth. You think he’s funny without hair? You should see him without teeth.”
Robinson explained that slaves were typically transported to Missouri in the winter months for the slave markets in downtown St. Louis, near where the St. Louis Arch and Busch Stadium stand today. Many enslaved people who escaped through Alton started at these markets in St. Louis.
He noted that “slaves were most valuable” when they reached the age for childbearing, specifically women. He said many women would begin having children at age 12 or 13 and continue into their 40s, and he pointed out that most of these pregnancies were the result of sexual violence. It was not uncommon for enslaved women to have over ten children, all of whom would eventually be sold into slavery.
Once a slave escaped, it was often “a battle of wits and everything else,” Robinson said. Slave owners would use aliases to try to locate escaped slaves. Meanwhile, escaped slaves would change their names and purchase bonds for $500, equivalent to one year’s worth of income, as a “receipt” of their freedom.
“If you were a slave, if you were a freed Negro in Illinois, a document like this, a receipt from the county saying you posted a bond of $500, which was equal to one year’s income, is nontransferrable,” Robinson said. “So if you go from Madison County to Macoupin County, you’d need a new bond, and you needed it if you were of age.”
He noted that it wasn’t uncommon for slave owners to destroy a free Black person’s bond and recapture them into slavery. Therefore, it was important to know many people and protect one another. Many freed slaves lived in more rural areas on the outskirts of Alton, such as Hunterstown, Oakwood and Rocky Fork.
These are just a few of the topics that Robinson and Hennings will cover on the bus tour. Robinson acknowledged that many people don’t know the true history of the Underground Railroad or the challenges faced by enslaved people after they escaped. He is eager to help educate more people about the history in their own communities.
“That’s one thing that people always say when I do my tours, that they didn’t talk about this in history class,” he said. “No, we don’t. We give you the polished apple without the worm.”
For more information about the Underground Railroad tour on Feb. 20, 2025, call 618-468-6400.
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