The plantations in Virginia and the South were dependent on the slave population for their success.  Through living-history programs, the daily lives of both the gentry and slaves are highlighted.  You will also learn how some plantations became refuges for emancipated slaves at the end of the Civil War, and how newly freed slaves made the transition from slavery to freedom.

Harriet Tubman, an American patriot, and icon for the Underground Railroad, was born into slavery on the Brodess Plantation in Bucktown, just outside of Cambridge, Md.  Her life has been chronicled in the Harriett Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, a 125-mile route that traverses through Maryland's Eastern Shore and links together 20 authentic Underground Railroad sites, bringing to life the stories of the self-liberators and fugitive slaves who escaped north in the 1850's.

The tour will take you to Baltimore, home of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, where compelling and triumphant stories of ordinary and extraordinary African-American heroes in Maryland are presented.

African-Americans made the U Street area (now a historic district) one of the city's most vibrant cultural, residential, and business districts. First settling here during the Civil War, they capitalized on new streetcar lines, inexpensive land, and the absence of residential segregation. By the 1920's, African-Americans had created institutions, businesses, and services that met the needs of area residents. By the 1940's, it was the place to hear Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and many more. In the 1960's U Street was a center of activism against legal segregation and racism.