While much has been said about Black Pittsburgh’s contributions to the Negro Leagues and the development of Jazz, comparatively little is made of the Pittsburgh’s Underground Railroad connection and abolitionist history.

LET FREEDOM RING—A replica of the “Liberty Bell” cast in Pittsburgh is on display in the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum in Canada.

In September, Pittsburghers will have a unique opportunity to tap into this little-known history by retracing the footsteps of abolitionists and passengers of the Underground Railroad over the Labor Day weekend.

Sala Udin, an ardent student of historical freedom movement joined with the Black-owned Pittsburgh based Corporate Planners Travel to sponsor a bus tour to Buxton and Windsor Ontario (just across the river from Detroit in Canada) to view the fruits of the collaboration of Pittsburgh’s freedom fighters and free Blacks and former slaves that culminated in the gift of a “freedom bell.”

Long before the Civil War, a free Black physician, Martin Robinson Delany, who was also a vocal abolitionist, published one of the earliest Black newspapers called The Mystery. His publication drew the attention of one Frederick Douglass who drew on Delany’s expertise to establish his own publication.

It was during an 1847 visit to Pittsburgh that Douglass, along with Delany, conceived The North Star (referencing “follow the North Star to freedom”), which would later be published in New York (Delaney was co-editor).

One of the articles in The North Star detailed the establishment of Buxton, a free-Black community in Canada.

Reverend William King, an Irish immigrant Presbyterian minister who was instruction in the founding of Buxton and would become a conductor on the Underground Railroad, in part due to the abolitionist activity in Pittsburgh and the support in the pages of The Mystery and The North Star, traveled to Pittsburgh in to garner financial and material support for the fledgling freedom sanctuary north of the border.

Although he only raised $400, King was raised the profile of Buxton and gained invaluable contacts who helped spread the word of the Canadian settlement as well as support. So impressed with King’s work, the Female Association at Pittsburgh, of Allegheny County (located in what is now North Side) raised funds to send a library to the settlement’s school.

Pittsburgh’s Black abolitionists, not to be outdone, decided to send a special gift as a show of solidarity with their brethren in Buxton. In 1850, they raised enough money to have the local A Fulton foundry cast a 500-pound “liberty bell,” sent to Canada to St. Andrew’s Church in South Buxton.

While the 153-year old bell still peals in the St. Andrew bell tower, a replica is on view to the public at the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum

That bell, long with the original Buxton settlement and the neighboring town of Chatham are both on the itinerary for the two-night three-day Labor Day weekend excursion. In fact, Pittsburgh residents have been invited to be special guests that weekend for Homecoming 2007, a special event to commemorate the unique history of the freed Black settlement. The trip also includes optional stops at casinos in Windsor, hotel accommodations, breakfast buffets and Sunday worship and host meal as guests of Buxton.

The deadline for the initial $100 deposit for the $295 chartered motorcoach trip is Aug. 3. For additional information, contact Corporate Travel Planners at 412-494-5858.