Underground Railroad

When you know the answers to these questions, go to www.4Kids.org/detectives/ When was the 50th anniversary of Hoover Dam? (Go to www.hooverdam.com/index.html to find out.) How much sunlight touches the rain forest floor? What did a lantern on a hitching post mean to slaves? FREEDOM ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD During America's dark chapter of slavery, there was one bright light indeed: the Underground Railroad, an escape route for slaves who wanted to start a new life. Now you can learn what it was like to risk life and limb in the quest for freedom.

These books for preschoolers and primary-grade children represent selected titles that pay homage to many aspects of Black History and African-American family life.Picture books* "Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad" by Pamela Duncan Edwards* "Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky" by Faith Ringgold* "Charlie Parker Played Be Bop" by Chris RaschkaFiction* "Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt" by Deborah Hopkinson* "Pink and Say" by Patricia Polacco* "Ragtime Tumpie" by Alan Schroeder* "Li'l Sis and Uncle Willie: A Story Based on the Life and Paintings of William H. Johnson" by Gwen Everett* "Can a Coal Scuttle Fly?"

Events will be held throughout the state this week in celebration of Harriet Tubman Day on Saturday. The General Assembly enacted legislation last year establishing March 10 as Harriet Tubman Day in Maryland. Tubman was born a slave in the 1820s and escaped to freedom through Baltimore to Philadelphia in 1849. She returned to Baltimore in 1850 and led more than 300 slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. She died in 1913. Activities include a dedication ceremony and reception.

Alison Kwan Kwan is a native of Yonkers, N.Y., and is a senior at the Johns Hopkins University. She has written for UniSun and The Sun's Modern Life section. After graduation, she plans to pursue a career in communications. For this issue, she writes about the Underground Railroad in a travel story. Cindy Blasingame Baker Baker, 34, writes about her decision to become a stay-at-home mom in this issue's First Person. She made that decision when she had her first child. Now she has two children.

The newly restored Orchard Street Church, already headquarters for the Baltimore Urban League, will be the home of a new museum devoted to the city's early African-American churches and their congregations.Members of the social services organization, which moved last fall to the restored church property at 512 Orchard St., recently approved a mission statement for the museum, planned as a second phase of construction.It will tell "the story of black churches in Baltimore, with a special emphasis on Orchard Street Church," said Nancy Brennan, executive director of the Baltimore City Life Museums, a consultant to the league.

It's not going to win Olympics-style mega-ratings, or create a Tonya-and-Nancy front-page buzz. But "Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad" is going to be seen by some viewers as one of the more important productions of the TV season.The made-for-cable film, which airs at 8 tonight on Black Entertainment Television and the Family Channel, marks the first time that African-Americans have had the chance to dramatize a slice of their history on prime-time TV.The result is an engaging film that differs in several key ways from previous made-for-TV versions of African-American history, which were controlled by whites.

Anthony M. Cohen wants you to walk in the shoes of a slave-but only for a few days and for your own good. The executive director of the Menare Foundation in Montgomery County has a dream of "Underground Railroad immersion" experiences - played out on a restored plantation - which would propel people to overcome modern-day problems. His problem is finding a suitable plantation site. On the list: a 300-acre farm in Columbia that once housed slaves. First, Cohen has to sell his idea to a citizens committee pondering uses for the dozen buildings on the 19th-century Blandair estate, slated as a future regional park for Howard County.

Stories of one of the country's most contentious debates over slavery and westward expansion and the Underground Railroad filled the Bel Air library June 23. With more than 50 in attendance, Fergus Bordewich, author of "America's Great Debate," spoke about the about the epic story of the Compromise of 1850, bringing to life during his animated discussion the colorful characters like Daniel Webster and John Colhoon and their stances. Stories included those not found in history books about the longest debate in Congressional history - like the fights that broke out on the Senate floor; the extraordinary political strategies that were at work during this turbulent time in our history; and the untold heroes of the Underground Railroad.

County's birthday will be celebrated Wednesday The Historical Society of Carroll County will hold its Carroll County's 168th Birthday Bash from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Robert Moton Elementary School, 1413 Washington Road, Westminster. The event will celebrate the efforts and legacy of the county's two Robert Moton schools and the Robert Moton Alumni. The current Robert Moton School is the second county school to be named in honor of Moton. The first was the county's black high school, dating to the era of segregation.

An effort to collect fresh tales for this year's "Ye Haunted History of Olde Ellicott City" ghost tours recently unearthed a tantalizing mystery that left tongues clucking up and down Main Street. In the center of the historic district, among restaurants, antiques shops and galleries, the owners of a new Mexican imports shop, El Porton, thought they had bumped into something more electrifying than a ghoul in their basement. "I don't have a ghost," co-owner Nancy Soto explained through a Spanish interpreter.