Black hiker calls on others to join him on walk to northern end of the Underground Railway

For years, Ken Johnston has hiked Black heritage trails across the U.S., retracing the steps of civil rights pioneers and the freedom seekers who fled slavery and made the long journey north.

In 2022, to mark the 200th birthday of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, he trekked from New York City to St. Catharines, Ont., where many former slaves settled, and where Tubman lived from 1851 to 1862.

This summer, the Philadelphia-based "walking artist" will continue north, following the path thousands of freedom seekers took to reach Owen Sound, Ont., the northernmost terminus of the Underground Railroad network, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. 

And he's looking for people to join him.

"Most of my walks have been solo walks, but this is one that I just feel differently about, and I want to open it up," he said. 

"Doesn't matter if you're white or Black or Indigenous. If anyone who has a love of history and wants to participate, they can come join for one day, one block or one mile."

The two-week, 265-kilometre Walk to Freedom will start at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center in New York on July 19, crossing the Rainbow Bridge into Ontario and continuing north all the way to Owen Sound.

Along the way, Johnston hopes to meet with freedom seeker descendants, and explore early Black settlements, such as Negro Creek in Grey County.

"All of this is to give people a sensory experience of just what it was like for these freedom seekers," he said. 

The itinerary for the Owen Sound walk is posted on Johnson's website, and those interested in participating in the initial cross-border walk can register through Eventbrite. 

The narrative learned about the Underground Railroad, he said, is that freedom seekers made it to the border, crossed, were free, and that's it, Johnson said.

"Well, their life went on from there. Some of them were already free. Some of them were formerly enslaved. It's about discovering their life on the other side of the border."

Owen Sound was one of several terminuses freedom seekers landed, along with Amherstburg, Buxton, Chatham, London and Windsor, said Channon Oyeniran, a historian and PhD candidate at Queen's University.

After the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave plantation owners the ability to recapture escaped slaves from free states, Owen Sound's distance from the border provided a sense of safety, she said.