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Whispers of Angels

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Broadcaster:  PBS

Whispers of Angels takes its viewers along the very roads traveled by the weary fugitives fleeing the south, through the historic Delaware communities of Camden, Dover, Odessa, New Castle and Wilmington. “Conductors” secretly led escaping slaves north over the St. Jones, Christina and Brandywine rivers and across the Mason Dixon Line into Pennsylvania where many traveled onward as far as Canada, where (prior to the passage of the Second Fugitive Slave Law) British law forbade slave catchers and frustrated former owners from chasing and recovering what they considered lost “property”.

This is the true story of the critical Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad and its role in the 19th century anti-slavery movement in America. Dramatic narrative scenes, underscored with specially recorded period music, and interviews with top scholars explore themes of courage and racial cooperation in the years leading up to the Civil War.

In this dramatic film, the collaboration between white Quaker Abolitionist Thomas Garrett and William Still, a free, black anti-slavery activist is explored. The pair’s joint effort to help “conduct” thousands of fugitives to freedom, with the help of the legendary Harriet Tubman and others, is at the center of this story about the “corridor of courage” that stretched from Maryland’s Eastern Shore through Delaware to the streets of Philadelphia and north.

World Gold Medal for History Programming, New York International Independent Film and Video Festival

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