| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley. By Keith P. Griffler. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. xviii, 169 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-8131-2298-8.)
Keith P. Griffler's Front Line of Freedom has a wonderful group of stories to reveal, and this ambitious monograph both provides an innovative and welcome perspective on slavery studies and contributes to a wave of revisionist literature on the Underground Railroad (UGRR). Instead of falling into the trap of previous generations, of trying to explain why American slaves did not rebel, the author sidesteps this cliché and delves into what slaves themselves knew—that slavery was war—and powerfully depicts the men and women volunteers on the "front line of freedom." Griffler provides detailed insights into campaigns along the banks of the Ohio River and the embattled careers of UGRR freedom fighters.	1
Griffler makes dramatic claims about Ohio's preeminence (for example, that it was the first state admitted to the Union without the stain of ever having permitted slavery in its territory) and the region's central role in funneling runaways into the North and on to Canada. Griffler tends to glorify the Ohio Valley's UGRR efforts—understandable in the wake of Stuart Sprague's 1996 edition of John Parker's autobiography, His Promised Land; Ann Hagedorn's powerful 2002 study, Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad; and Griffler's own impressive research.	. . .

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