Kucinich Introduces Bill to Exemplify Importance of the Underground Railroad

Ohio Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich's congressional website http://kucinich.house.gov/ posted the following press release.

Kucinich Introduces Bill to Exemplify Importance of the Underground Railroad

Washington, Jun 13 - WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), along with his Ohio colleagues Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Jean Schmidt introduced the bipartisan Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program Act of 2007. Senator Sherrod Brown introduced the same bill in the Senate.

This legislation will re-authorize a competitive grant program administered by the Department of Education to research, display, interpret and collect artifacts relating to the history of the Underground Railroad.

“This important effort will educate citizens across the country and around the world about the Underground Railroad movement in America,” Kucinich said. “This legislation will ensure a strong public-private partnership exists to supplement and leverage federal resources along with funds collected at the state and local level.”

“During one of the darkest eras in our history, a group of courageous Americans, both black and white, free and enslaved, bound together to form what would be known as the Underground Railroad.

“This racially integrated movement to bring about social change has familiar heroes such as Harriet Tubman, William Still, John Rankin and Susan B. Anthony, but there are thousands more who risked their lives to help others escape the clutches of slavery as they fled to the North.”

The Underground Railroad Educational and Culture Program Act of 2007 would provide competitive grants to non-profit organizations around the United States to shed light on one of the most important and courageous social movements in our history while preserving and interpreting artifacts found from this critical era.