Russian research

Soviet Sport and Soviet Foreign Policy

James Riordan

Soviet Studies , Vol. 26, No. 3 (Jul., 1974), pp. 322-343

Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/150858

Page 322

-sport politicized as a power struggle between east and west after WWII, became criticism in 1950’s

-sports social significance grew

Page 323

-USSR sport integrated into state policy

-many sport organizations are run by trade unions and supervised by a state department (Minister of Physical Culture and Sport)

-army clubs have teams (famous red army hockey team CSKA)

-army clubs open to non-service personnel

Page 326

-sports policy tied into socialist workers “unions”

Page 327

-World Youth Festival in 1973=20 000 foreign participants

-East called it a festival of unity and solidarity

-Brit press called it propaganda

-East claimed sport was a show of friendship

Page 333

-won Olympic gold

-took up hockey after WWII

-won worlds gold in 1954

Page 339

-Czechoslovakian coaches worked with Soviets

Sport as a Soviet Tool

John N. Washburn

Foreign Affairs , Vol. 34, No. 3 (Apr., 1956), pp. 490-499

Published by: Council on Foreign Relations

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20031180

Page 495

-30 unions operating sports clubs in USSR

Page 496

-Red Sport International (KSI) founded in 1921 to prep peasants for the class struggle

-also trained as agents

Page 497

-pre WWII best athletes got special things like food, accomadation etc

Page 498

-athletes like Bobrov (best hockey player in the 1950’s) would join army clubs

-cash bonus system for records (more for world)

-cash bonuses were not permitted at this time

Last updated: September 6, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/sports/hockey/canada-soviet-hockey-series-1972/game-1-shocker.html

Page consulted on March 20, 2013

So about that time bowling made the Olympics and women's water polo didn't

My mom tells this story to me and my sister every two years or so. It is probably the best way to convey how female athletes are treated in ways that can really hurt them. A bit about my mom before this: she is the fourth of six kids, five of them girls. She was the one who held buffalo board up on the outside of the new addition on their house at 15. That's my mom. She also was a very good water polo player, one of the best in Canada and on the national team for a few years before she had kids. Canada was one of the best teams in the world. She never went to the Olympics because women's water polo did not become an Olympic sport until 2000.

Understand this, water polo has been an Olympic sport since 1900. That is 100 years before women could play in the Olympics. In 1988 there was the chance that women's water polo would be a demonstration sport meaning it is played to promote the sport and does not have full medal standing. My mom was not against this, she just wanted to go to the Olympics. It was never named a demonstration sport; my mom was devastated. Bowling made the Olympics as a demonstration sport and women's water polo did not. Remember that this was 88 years after men's water polo made its Olympic debut. My mom was 26. The Seoul Olympics remain the only Olympics my mom did not watch because she was too heartbroken.

There is a lot to be said about women's sports and equality. The most important part is that women should be given the same opportunity as men. Women should be allowed to compete in the same sports as men at the Olympics if possible. Water polo is not a sport that women can compete against men in, but by 1988 there was enough depth internationally to let women compete in the Olympics. They decided against it and the results for at least one athlete were that of devastation. Most of the builders of women's water polo in Canada never got play in the Olympics. Their dream was never able to be realized because...well no one knows why.

When FINA/IOC does not have the women swim the 1500m freestyle for some reason, it matters. When Canada goes home from the Olympics with a bunch of female medalists, including three of the four Olympic champions, it matters. It matters because while women have long since been allowed to play, they are rarely allowed to play on an equal playing field with men. Just ask my mom about 1988, Seoul, and the time that bowling made the Olympics and women's water polo didn't.

Snape is not a hero

Professor Severus Snape of Harry Potter shame is seen as a hero by some for putting his life at risk to act as a double agent in the fight against Lord Voldemort. Snape is far from that. The reason Snape puts his life at risk is because his childhood crush's life is at risk and in the hand of Voldemort. Issue is the lives of her young son and husband are also at risk. Snape does not care if they live or die, just that Lily Potter be spared. This is inherently creepy.

I think it is important to recognize that Snape is brave to act as a double agent for Dumbledore. But he is creepy as hell in doing it. He never stops loving Lily and it seems as though he never got over his hate for her husband James. To be fair, James bullied him badly at school, but Snape retaliates for that by bullying their son Harry for 6 years. He abused his position of power to make a student who has been to hell and back feel terrible whenever he had the opportunity.

Does unrequited love have to die at some point? Yes. If one person moves on, then the other person has to accept that. Lily saw the choices that Snape was making at school. He was hanging out with Death Eaters and highly interested in the Dark Arts. On the other hand the boy that had loved her for a while actually grew up and stopped being a jerk. Lily fell in love with him, they got married, had a kid, went into hiding and were killed all before they turned 22. This left their son an orphan in need of protection. Dumbledore ensured that protection was provided, but he needed help from those who were in Hogwarts.

Snape was the only teacher who hated Harry. Professor McGonnagall got frustrated with his constant rule-breaking with his friends, but most of the teachers liked him and somehow he ended up being a well-adjusted and generally smart student...unless you asked Snape. Instead, Snape viewed him as an untalented nitwit who could do no right. Yet Harry managed to do a lot of right that Snape failed to recognize. Instead he bullied and antagonized Harry to no end, constantly trying to make him out to be the bad guy even when he was in the right.

I think it is because of how severely terrible J.K. Rowling wrote Snape that she made his redemption story seem sweet. He loved Lily. He risked his life to try to save hers. He obsessed about her after her death. It was creepy. Instead of being like Harry and finding love after never knowing what it felt like, Snape hated the one person who could have helped him find some closure. Instead of helping her son find success, Snape tried to make him a failure.

Snape is not a hero. Snape is a guy who was okay with two people dying, including a one year old, as long as the "love of his life" lived. Instead, he tried to break the kid when he got the chance.

The Imperfect Perfection of Anne and Gilbert

Romance novels are unappealing to me because they create every character to be perfect. These flawless humans are lovely, but they make for a boring, unrealistic read because no one is like that. I begrudgingly decided to read the Anne of Green Gables books because I am a good Canadian and those are Canadian books. I ended up falling in love with how L.M. Montgomery wrote Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe's romance.

First of all, Montgomery does the age old "boy teases girl because he likes her." This works because it is true and it sets up the story of their love: imperfection leads to a perfectly imperfect love. Anne detests Gilbert and refuses to like him from this point forward; only engaging with him when it came to academic competition. Anne was too proud to admit that at some point she started liking Gilbert and because of that she almost lost him.

At some point Anne takes multiple marriage proposals, all of which she declines. The only one she accepts is the one she always wanted, but never expected to get a second chance at, the one from Gilbert. Pride and youth already tried to end their romance, but yet they found each other and finally made it...except Gilbert still had three years of medical school. After all that time though, it was a nothing wait for them.

Most of the marriages in Anne of Green Gables are marriages of convenience. Girls have to get married so they marry the first nice boy they meet. Anne and Gilbert's marriage is the exact opposite of that. Anne is the most inconvenient girl for Gilbert to marry and yet he keeps on trying to get her until she matures enough to see that he cares about her and loves her, as she does to him.

Even in their marriage, they are not portrayed as always happy. At the end of Anne of Ingleside, Anne is terribly jealous because Gilbert is distracted by what she thinks is a former flame and is ignoring her own emotional turmoil.  And then she thinks he has forgotten their anniversary and completely does not care about what she wears when they go out. Turns out a sick patient was causing him so much stress that he was not himself and he had noticed all the little things Anne had tried to do for him but stopped because he was ignoring them. Instead of acting like everything was happy all the time in a marriage, Montgomery portrayed the idea that it isn't, but love wins.

Anne of Green Gables is a somewhat flawed series, some books are superfluous and some characters are quite shallow. But the bones of the book are a strong-minded woman who is allowed to remain who she is in a restrictive environment and a man who loves her because of that, not in spite of it. Montgomery's bravery in writing the characters as flawed people instead of perfect humans. In doing so, she wrote near perfect characters who have a near perfect love story.

Love, Loyalty, and Harry Potter

I finally re-read Harry Potter after first reading them when I was no older than 14. At the time the books were good to me, but the actual meaning in them; the mature themes in them were lost. The writing carries the last three books for younger people. The writing is strong enough to mean something even then, but to get the themes of the books, love and loyalty always winning, you have to have a more mature understanding of what is valued.

Harry's longing for his parents is a common part of the books. He misses them greatly, especially in times of trouble. The longing is aided by his need for love. Harry can love though and that love is what makes him unique. Because he can feel love, Voldemort cannot touch him. Dumbledore says that often, but J.K. Rowling makes love a much bigger theme in the books than being about just Lily Potter's love for Harry.

There is love everywhere you look in the series. In the second book Harry and Ron go into the Chamber of Secrets to save Ginny. In the third book Sirius risked his life to see his Godson in person. Harry repays him by saving him from the Dementors. In the fourth book McGonagall fights to get Harry out of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Sirius makes sure Harry is alright by checking in on him and risking being caught again to make sure Harry is not hurt. The fifth book Harry loves Sirius so much that he leaves the safety of Hogwarts to go save him from a place he is not even at. Sirius loves Harry enough to go into the Ministry of Magic to save him and ends up dying. The fifth book is also when Dumbledore explains how love saved him (along with other information pertaining to Voldemort) and Harry starts to understand what magic protected him that night in Godric's Hollow. The seventh book features the Battle of Hogwarts where Tonks came to help Lupin (her husband) fight, Percy rejoined his family and then reacted like someone who still loved his family when his brother was killed and Molly Weasley killed Bellatrix Lestrange because she was fighting her daughter. Narcissa Malfoy even helped Harry deceive Voldemort and regain himself so he could kill him. All so she could see her son.

The best example of love though is Professor Snape and why he is no longer on Voldemort's side. Snape knew Lily before she went to Hogwarts and Lily was kind to him when few were. Snape loved Lily, she loved James. When Snape knew that they were next and Voldemort was going to kill them and Harry, he went to Dumbledore. He left Voldemort because his love of Lily was too strong. Dumbledore knew Snape would not turn on him, but he needed Snape to play both sides. Snape being a double agent was a risky thing that came from love.

Aside from love there is also the theme of loyalty. The character that best shows this loyalty is Neville Longbottom. From the first book on Neville is a someone who always tries to do the right thing. He stands up to his friends when they go to break rules. He masters defence spells against dark magic so he can fight alongside Harry. He goes to the Ministry to fight. He starts up an underground resistance when Snape is headmaster and he continues to fight until the end. Neville is loyal to Harry, to Dumbledore and is a sign of all the good in the world. Although not a prominent early on, from book five on Luna Lovegood becomes another loyal friend of Harry's, always up for a fight even with the odds not in their favour.

Harry Potter is a Young Adult series, but Rowling manages to talk about the intense theme of love as not something between two young people, but in the sense of family and how love will prevail when all seems lost. Rowling explores a common theme, love, but in a way that is rarely explored for young people: familial love. She then sprinkles in loyalty to show that love and loyalty and nothing else can beat evil.

Christine Sinclair aura of being makes her vital a vital role model

The game had the perfect timing. It was on my birthday and I wanted nothing that year so I asked my parents to take me. Just a 21 year old out with her parents at a soccer game. As you will, Canada. When we were there my mom and dad both observed that the stands were packed with young people watching the women's soccer team and how good that was. Young girls don't have a lot of female role models and there was a team of them playing sports. Perfection.

The linchpin for the team is Christine Sinclair. She grew up on the team and will forever be the one all others are compared to. Way back when she was featured in Owl magazine (issue since recycled). But it is how she carries herself that is more important than anything she does in sport. There was an article in Walrus about her and it talked about how she refuses to be marketed for her looks. This was presented as a bad thing because it means she is leaving money on the table. It is a great thing. Quietly, uncompromisingly Sinclair is making a silent statement to young girls and women everywhere: be you and let people see you for you.

Male athletes are marketed for their talent alone everyday, yet the expectation is that female athletes are only marketable if they are conventionally pretty. Sinclair refuses to let anyone do that to her. Instead, she only allows herself to be marketed as a peer to her male counterparts. In a recent SportChek commercial, she was featured alongside other athletes: male, female, professional, amateur, abled and disabled. The theme of the commercial was "all sweat is equal". Every single athlete was presented as equal.

A lot is written about Sinclair the player and what she means to Canada and soccer. Not a lot is written about how her uncompromising personality and her stance on how she is marketed. It sends a message, even without it being known to females: I am equal and I am going to be known as an athlete. Unflinchingly going against the norm and staying true to oneself is more important than any legacy left on the field of play. Unknowingly there will be a generation of girls who see themselves as not needing to be sexualized to be seen as the best because they have someone who was willing to be themselves and while doing that they were also able to be one of the best at what they do.

At the end of the day, the legacy of one player will not be determined by a World Cup. Instead, that legacy will silently be determined by young girls learning that you do not have to change for others to like you. Be yourself. Be uncompromising. Do what you love. Do it with every ounce of your being. Do not change. The smart people will accept you and love you for being you.

The Quilts of the Underground Railroad: The Secret Communication to Freedom

I wrote this for a class in the spring. It is a final paper after learning about slavery and indentured labour. The resistance of slaves was focussed on because the slaves were not sympathetic figures; they fought back. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad is a great resource to learn more about the story of the quilts. 

The Underground Railroad was seen as a route to freedom; a dangerous journey to Canada that was undertaken by brave slaves and their allies who were determined to help them reach freedom. Do to the illegal nature of this work those who ran the Underground Railroad used hard to identify symbols to help the slaves find their way from station to station. On the other hand the slaves themselves found a way to pass the legend of the Underground Railroad without getting caught; through song. These two different forms of communication helped the Underground Railroad remain underground and away from slave owners and drivers. The safety of everyone involved in the Underground Railroad was paramount and to achieve success at moving slaves out of slavery and into Canada so they could be free. By focusing on two components of the communication methods used by the slaves and the station managers. The coded messages shared through both song and quilt were key to the safe escapes of those who decided to run. What did the codes in the quilts and in “Follow the Drinking Gourd” represent? How did the codes and the community surrounding the enslaved Africans help them preserve the heritage that the slave owners were trying to steal from them?

The Underground Railroad is the most famous way that slaves escaped to freedom in Canada. Through a series of safe houses or stations, slaves moved through the United States of America by foot until they reached Cleveland, Ohio where they were transported across Lake Erie into Canada where they would be free at last. The journey usually occurred at nighttime, with the dark allowing for some security for the slaves[1]. The journey was treacherous. If a slave was caught they were punished severely. The Underground Railroad became a way to escape the harsh conditions and to experience freedom, even if that freedom was achieved in another country.

Both former slaves and white folk who were sympathetic to the plight of the enslaved slaves facilitated the Underground Railroad. Many of the former slaves who helped facilitate the Underground Railroad were granted manumissions because of the War of Independence and their willingness to fight along side Americans to gain freedom from Great Britain[2]. These former slaves gained knowledge once they became free, but they never lost touch with the community of slaves that they knew through the plantation grapevine, a system of communication devised by the slaves to share information from plantation to plantation. This form of communication became vital to the spreading of the Underground Railroad as a means to achieve freedom. The Underground Railroad was one example of slave resistance and silent protest. Slaves did not hold power, but they were able to control their lives to a certain extent by fighting back through marooning and creating an entire system to help slaves escape to Canada.

The Underground Railroad was the silent way that slaves fought back. It was silent in the sense that it was hard to trace. The slaves and those who ran the Underground Railroad formed a system of communication that was intricate and based on both African culture and basic ideas of remaining hidden. The slaves and those who helped run the Underground Railroad used everyday items and songs to communicate the instructions for travelling on the Underground Railroad. The everyday item that was used was the quilts. Quilts were the everyday item that was used by slaves to learn the way to Canada and to communicate how to prepare. Song was used to pass the directions along. One of the most famous Underground Railroad song is the African American folk song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”. By combining the use of the quilts with the lyrics from “Follow the Drinking Gourd” it becomes apparent that communication about the Underground Railroad was coded in a way that was easy to understand, yet easy to hid from the slave masters and overseers[3].

There are two key components to the discussion of how the Underground Railroad used hidden culture to enable communication is the quilts of the Underground Railroad and the popular African American folk song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”. The oral tradition of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” has led some historians to believe that there were changes to the song from the original Creole language to the Anglicized version that is known today. By interpreting “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, valuable information about the Underground Railroad can be discovered. The route and how to travel safely are hidden within the song, which was sung by the slaves. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” traveled from plantation to plantation with slaves who were traded. Although the song has been Anglicized, the lyrics still tell the route to Canada and how to reach each key destination safely. It can be argued that the Anglicizing of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” makes it a less valuable source because of the changes made through the years as the song became a popular piece of African American music[4].

“Follow the Drinking Gourd” is a concrete example of how music influenced the use to the Underground Railroad. Due to the lack of education of slaves, there is no written documentation of their songs. The songs traveled from plantation to plantation via slaves who had be traded or sold. The song contained key instructions for the journey to Canada including how to cross the Ohio River without drowning and clues on how to find the point of crossing. Crossing the Ohio River was one of the main problems faced by the Underground Railroad because the river was dangerous, but crossing it was a key part of the journey to Canada. By using a song that was full of instructions, the slaves were given a safe way to remember how to get to Canada. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” is a verbal representation of the clues that are presented in the quilts.

The use of quilts on the Underground Railroad involved different patterns with each pattern acting as a different instruction. The quilts were used to help instruct slaves on how they were go forth in their journey to Canada. Much like “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, the quilts were used as a tool to communicate through the plantation grapevine that was hidden from the slave owners. The plantation grapevine was a tool that not only allowed slaves at different plantations to communicate, but it also allowed them to communicate with the freed slaves of the North[5]. It was this communication that allowed for the creation of the Underground Railroad because the freed slaves, many of whom had received manumission for fighting in the War of Independence, were now educated and literate. Those two factors helped the freed slaves create a simple system of communication that was difficult to break because system was based around everyday tasks that did not look out place and yet those tasks were sending valuable instructions to the slaves.

Quilts were a key form of communication because they were a household item that needed to be aired out. The quilts acted as a step-by-step guide for how to escape and what move should be next[6]. From gathering tools to when to leave; the quilts were a silent message to the slaves planning to maroon. The quilts were the safest way to communicate about escaping the oppressive system. The quilts were put out at different times to help remind of tasks that needed to be completed or routes that needed to be taken. The quilts came out in a certain order to ensure the code was followed. The last quilt shown was the quilt that had the tumbling blocks pattern, meaning it was time to move.

The names of the quilts were also used to safely talk about escaping while in earshot of their overseers. Terms like “around the world” took on new meaning thanks to the quilt code[7]. The slaves code allowed them to share the knowledge that they gained through the grapevine. Coded directions like “around the world”, which means to walk around the Appalachian Mountains, were key to the success of the Underground Railroad because the directions were able to be kept hidden from the overseers.

Besides the patterns, the stitches themselves held valuable information for the slaves including distances to safe houses and other key landmarks on the slaves journey to Canada. Once again, this information was only known to slaves and was easily hidden from the slave owners. The use of stitching is another tie to African tradition as quilts in Africa featured stitching to hold the filling. Another key part of the journey that was influenced by African is the zigzag pattern that the safe houses were set up in. Many African cultures believed that nothing good traveled in straight lines and this is shown in the pattern of safe houses along the Underground Railroad[8]. These little details allowed the slaves to remain true to the homeland that they were torn from unwillingly, forced to move to a strange land to work under horrible conditions for nothing in return.

The power of the quilts and of the Underground Railroad was is was a concentrated act of resistance that was aided by those who had been freed before. There were coded messages that harkened back to different cultures in Africa and different African American societies in the United States. The power of the quilts was that they took components of their homeland and allowed them to use those components to help guide the marooned slaves to freedom.

 The use of songs like “Follow the Drinking Gourd” added another layer to the coded messages of the Underground Railroad. The quilts did not travel with the marooned slaves; they stayed on plantations and were used as a way to train the mind to remember the journey before hand. They were used a mnemonic devices to help the marooning slaves remember their route[9]. Song was used in the same way. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” provides explicit instructions on what path to take to Ohio and even how to cross the Ohio River without drowning. Much like the quilts, music allowed for the memory of these instructions through mnemonic device. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” has become a well-known African American folk song, helping to create the unique culture that the community harbours today.

 The two different forms of mnemonic devices share a lot of similarities. Both “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and the quilts place an emphasis on the North Star. The North Star represented the direction that they had to walk to reach freedom. The quilts and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” reference the North Star repeatedly. In fact, the drinking gourd is a reference to the Big Dipper, a constellation that is apart of Ursa Major, which is found by finding the North Star. The importance of the North Star as a navigational tool is one that goes back centuries before it became a key part of the navigational methods employed by marooned slaves to reach their destination. The North Star is a key symbol unto itself when it comes to the Underground Railroad.

Although the end game of all slaves on the Underground Railroad was to reach Canada, their key destination in the United States of America was Cleveland, Ohio. The quilt code was used to communicate the importance of Cleveland through the cross road pattern[10]. The quilt signified the crossroads that the marooned slaves had reached. All of a sudden they were a boat ride away from freedom and the most dangerous part of the journey was over. No longer were they traveling through the southern states where being caught meant going back to the plantation that they ran away from and being punished for their actions. The journey was all but over for the marooned slaves once they made it to Ohio because Ohio was a free state. Cleveland was the city that was chosen for the final crossing into Canada because Cleveland is a port city that borders on Lake Erie; one of the four Great Lakes that is shared between Canada and the United States of America. The passage over Lake Erie was the final passage before reaching freedom. That final passage, a boat ride across Lake Erie, was taken at night when it was harder to see other boats to ensure that the marooned slaves would remain safe from capture for the last part of their journey to freedom[11].

The use of coded messages in quilts and in songs as a means of communication for the Underground Railroad is one of the silent ways that slaves protested their enslavement. Their quiet act of resistance, building a community to aid in the marooning of slaves to a free land, was a powerful message much like the infanticides and suicides that took place on the passage over. The use of silent protests as an act of resistance is a pattern seen time and time again in the slave movement. The silent protest that the coded messages of the Underground Railroad represents goes beyond the resistance of slavery and into holding onto a culture that the slave trade was actively trying to destroy.  By using the art of coded messages in quilts to allow the traditions of the slaves’ African homeland to stay with them in the United States, even when it seemed like it was not allowed. The small ways in which the slave community tried to preserve their heritage was an act of resistance. By not giving up their traditions entirely, the slaves were not allowing their traditions from home to be stolen from them entirely. In their own silent way, the slaves were protesting their enslavement in every way possible.

The Underground Railroad was a way that slaves were able to fight for themselves and for each other. They would work together to help slaves escape. The quilt code was used on the plantations as a way to help prepare the slaves for escape. Different quilts gave them different sets of instructions on how to prepare for their escape. The Underground Railroad became a community for the slaves, allowing them to work together to get members to Canada where they were free. Former slaves who had received manumission were apart of this community, helping the marooned slaves moves safely through dangerous territory to help them reach the free state of Ohio. The coded communication system that the slaves created was part of the community.  The code traveled through the slave grapevine, allowing the slaves to be connected, even when on different plantations. There were even people who visited the plantations that helped the slaves by giving them information on the surrounding geography. The Underground Railroad, with its coded messages and symbols, became a powerful community of marooning slaves, freed slaves, and white sympathizers who worked together to help slaves reach freedom. Together, they achieved just that.

The Quilt Code and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” represent far more than just the route of the Underground Railroad to Canada. Both coded messages carried in them ingenuity in extenuating circumstances that would have left many helpless to the atrocities that the slaves were facing. Under these conditions the slaves, along with freed slaves and white sympathizers, a way of slaves reaching Canada and freedom was developed. The slaves were able to turn everyday objects into a system of communication that helped the slaves move towards freedom in Canada. By building the system in a way that the plantation owners and the overseers could see the codes without knowing that they were looking at anything beyond a quilt being aired out speaks to the daring nature of the slaves. The slaves had to be brave to escape. They had to be willing to risk everything to have a chance at freedom. The story of the slaves quest for freedom does not end with the open use of the coded messages and what they meant, it continues on through the connections to different beliefs in Africa and how those beliefs influenced the making of the quilts. The story of the quilts on the Underground Railroad and the lyrics of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” point to a connection to the culture that the slaves had been taken away from when they were captured to journey to the United States was found throughout the coded messages and even in the set up of the safe houses on the Underground Railroad harkens back to old beliefs held by some African cultures. The connection, no matter the outside influences that were projected onto them by groups and traditions formed in the United States, were still a form of preservation of a culture that was being ripped away from the slaves. The knots that help hold the stuffing in place were an African influence. The use of the number five and zigzag patterns when tying the knots. All of these symbolize influences from Africa; influences that helped preserve the culture that the plantation owners were trying to eliminate. The slaves never allowed everything to be taken from them and they fought back. Slowly. Meticulously. Purposefully. They fought back until they were able to gain freedom. First by escaping silently after weeks of preparation: slipping away and running through the night until they reached Canada. The journey was treacherous. It was risky. It helped build a community where there was not one because of the dangers. The Underground Railroad, built to help slaves escape their misery and journey to Canada became part of a greater community built around innovation and secret codes that allowed the slaves to communicate within earshot of their overseers; to plan how to best escape. With the help of the quilt code and songs like “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, enslaved Africans were to preserve the culture that they were stolen from and form a community that spanned across plantations.

  

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[1] George and Willen Hendrick, ed., Fleeing to Freedom. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004) 3

[2] Raymond G. Dobard and Jacqueline L. Tobin. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.  (New York: Random House, 1999) 55

[3] NASA Quest. "Explanation of "Follow the Drinking Gourd"."

[4] James B. Kelley, “Song, Story, or History: Resisting Claims of a Coded Message in the African American Spiritual “Follow the Drinking Gourd” Journal of Popular Culture 41 (2008): 264

[5] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 39

[6] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 68

[7] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 90

[8] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 78

[9] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 73

[10] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 98

[11] Fergus M. Bordewich Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. (New York: HarperCollins, 2005) 190