Mean to be Free
A Flight North on the Underground Railroad

by Joanna Halpert Kraus

Drama in 2 acts, 6 scenes. 10 men, 4 women (with doubling 7 men, 4 women). One hour 15 minutes . $ 6.50

Mean to be Free, the story of two black children who traveled the dangerous Underground Railroad north to freedom, is based on events that happened over a hundred and sixty years ago, yet its significance now is greater than ever. It dramatizes a people's struggle to stand with dignity. The courageous actions of characters both black and white--Harriet Tubman (the Moses of her people), Thomas Garrett, a Quaker station master from Wilmington, and Oliver Johnson, head of the New York Anti-Slavery Office--are based on historical accounts.

Although the Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad, it had passengers, train conductors, and station masters. Its journey north was filled with adventure and suspense, for as Moses warned,
"You've got to sleep by day, walk by night. And never let folks know you're about. Watch me. You'll learn to hide as well as I can. You gotta walk so quiet that there's not even a sound of your bare feet on the earth. When you sleep you gotta be so quiet that there's not a sound of breathing. Not a cough or a sneeze. Once this train starts, ain't no turning back."

Recently a good customer in South Carolina, responding to the controversy over the official use of the Confederate flag in that state, decided to bring back the production of Mean to be Free she had done some years ago. Might you too want to bring African-American history alive for your audience, and reflect on the ways the past is still with us, by sharing this dramatic account of some people and events, large and small, that led up to the Civil War?