num_pages: 180
description: THE RIVER JORDAN is the fictionalized account of an actual escape on the Underground Railroad of a slave and her seven children from a western Virginia tobacco plantation on the Ohio River in 1843. The Ohio, the River Jordan to slaves, was the border between free and slave states. All the book's major characters and events are real, portrayed as reported in newspapers and historical documents of the time. This vivid, inspiring chronicle of a family's harrowing 2 1/2-week flight across Ohio to freedom in Canada is also a story of heroism and compassion, by black and white Americans alike. There may be no more important story in American history than that of slavery, its abolishment, and the commitment of ordinary Americans to help end this abomination by putting their lives, the lives of their families, and their livelihoods at stake to help the many thousands of slaves who escaped. Jane's story is more timely than ever, and not just because for the first time in our nation's history a black family occupies the White House. Virtually all wars and acts of terrorism in the world today are the result of ethnic hatred and racial prejudice. What better example has there ever been of compassionate, courageous cooperation between the peoples of different races than the Underground Railroad? That inspiring story may have been America's finest hour and is still vital not only for its historical significance but because of what it has to tell us about ourselves who we are as Americans, black and white, and what, together, we can accomplish. In the way that enough healing time has to pass before a society is truly ready to examine and learn from its past, the Underground Railroad is a story whose time has finally come.
language: English
title: The River Jordan: A True Story of the Underground Railroad
titlecomplete: The River Jordan: A True Story of the Underground Railroad
genres: Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 16
publisher: Watershed Books