Freedom Seekers and agents of the Underground Railroad prepare to cross the Ohio River, detail from Robert Dafford's Underground Railroad Mural in Portsmouth, Ohio

ID: 708 ~ Source: Scioto Historical Collection, Center for Public History, Shawnee State University, Portsmouth, Ohio. ~ Creator: Andrew Feight, Ph.D. ~ Date: 2022

This file appears in: “The Crossing”: Robert Dafford's Underground Railroad Mural in Portsmouth, Ohio

In this detail from Robert Dafford's Underground Railroad mural in Portsmouth, Ohio, a group of African Americans and their Underground Railroad conductors prepare to cross the Ohio River in a rowboat.

This file appears in: “The Crossing”: Robert Dafford's Underground Railroad Mural in Portsmouth, Ohio

“The Crossing”: Robert Dafford's Underground Railroad Mural in Portsmouth, Ohio

By Andrew Lee Feight, Ph.D.

Hidden away in plain sight, like the operations of the Underground Railroad itself, one finds Robert Dafford's mural honoring the heroic men and women who fled their enslavement in the southern…