Change Agents: Win Free DVD

"It's a movement in which black people and white people, women and men, rich and poor, Protestants, Catholics and Jews, come together to accomplish a major social change.

John Burt, Esq., Pittsburgh Historian
From the documentary Safe Harbor

John Burt could just as easily have been talking about the 2008 presidential election when he described the Underground Railroad, a movement that 160 years ago helped define who we are as a nation.

The Underground Railroad is one example that proves how important ordinary people can be in making the world a better place. Sometimes all it took was a piece of bread, a warm bed to sleep in, or directions to the next station. Yet through their collective actions, tens of thousands of people escaped to freedom and the nation eventually abolished the institution of slavery. From free black communities to middle-class white society, in small villages and on farms, small groups of freedom fighters risked everything they owned to make America be what America said it was.

Today, you can have the same impact with your vote.

We were inspired by the story of the freedom fighters on the Underground Railroad when we produced our documentary, Safe Harbor, back in 2003, and we think its message is even more relevant today. If you would like to win a free copy of the DVD, simply leave a comment here between now and February 18. Three DVDs will be awarded on President's Day.

Here are a few excerpts from the on-camera interviews. See transcripts, lesson plans for teachers and homeschoolers, and original documents, on the companion web site.

VOICES FROM SAFE HARBOR:

"You know, America has some wonderful principles. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. These are the magic words of American history and the American nation. We are a nation with ideals that ought to be the envy of human kind. We are a tremendously impressive nation in terms of what we want to be. But, the fact of life is that from the beginning, we haven't been what we said we were. We haven't been what we want to be. The abolition of slavery was a step towards becoming what America said it wanted to be. It seems to me that every citizen has a responsibility, and the responsibility is to live up to the highest ideals of your nation, and to do everything in your power to see that that nation lives up to its highest ideals. You don't have the luxury of being apathetic when it comes to pressing your nation towards its highest ideals. That's what being a citizen in a Democratic society means."

James Oliver Horton, Ph.D.
George Washington University
Historian, Author, Pulitzer Prize Nominee

"I remember reading a document that Vasco da Gama had written as he reported back to Portugal on his excursion around Africa. He said this, he said, "I have captured the coast. As a consequence of capturing the coast, I have secured their land. Without their land, they will have no history, and without their history, they will have no future." We need to prove Vasco da Gama wrong."

John Ford
Senator John Heinz
Pittsburgh Regional History Center

"It's imperative that we preserve the former sites connected with the Underground Railroad. That we reinterpret the Underground Railroad to include all people of all races, so that we can walk upon this American earth in sisterhood and brotherhood. To me, that is what symbolized the Underground Railroad."

Charles Blockson
Underground Railroad Historian
Emeritus, Temple University

"To understand the best of America, the values of fair play and equality and justice and the happiness that is brought by living in America, it is also necessary to understand the worst, the racial intolerance, the violence, the brutality. And by looking back at slavery, we can understand the worst and, perhaps, it will help us in understanding our present values and attitudes."

Loren Schweninger, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina/Greensboro
Historian, Author, Winner of the 2000 Lincoln Prize

"Think of the resistance to San Salvador. Or you think of draft resistance. Something that's unpopular, that was illegal, but people did it and were willing to bear the consequences for their actions. That's American. Look at a situation, decide what is right, and then do it, because it is right."

Leroy T. Hopkins, Ph.D.
Millersville University