US Postal Service to release Underground Railroad stamps this week in Maryland ceremony

The U.S. Postal Service is honoring 10 leaders from the Underground Railroad on new Forever stamps, which are being unveiled in a Saturday ceremony in Dorchester County, Maryland.

Many leaders of the Underground Railroad, the secret network of those escaping slavery and those who assisted them, remained anonymous. But the figures being honored on the stamp include Catharine Coffin, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett, Laura Haviland, Lewis Hayden, Harriet Jacobs, William Lambert, the Rev. Jermain Loguen, William Still and Harriet Tubman.

“The ingenuity and resilience of the freedom seekers and those who bravely assisted them in the face of adversity are truly inspiring and deserve to be commemorated,” the U.S. Postal Service said in an emailed statement to The Baltimore Sun. “Our stamps are miniature works of art that highlight the American experience, an experience the 10 men and women featured on these stamps worked ceaselessly to improve for many throughout their lives.”

Here are the contributions to the Underground Railroad of some of the people honored:

• Coffin was a white woman who provided food, clothing and shelter to thousands of slaves who came to her home in Indiana.

• Douglass was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, escaped north in 1838 and helped hundreds of slaves by hiding them in his home in New York.

• Garrett was a white man dedicated to freeing slaves after rescuing a free African American servant of the Garrett family who was kidnapped by slave traders. He would become a stationmaster, hiding fugitive slaves in his home for more than four decades.

• Tubman was born into slavery in early 1822 near Cambridge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She repeatedly returned to Maryland to liberate family, friends and neighbors, using the Underground Railroad.

The stamps will feature the faces of the people honored as well as words that embody the essence of the secret network, such as cooperation, trust, danger, faith and courage.

“The Underground Railroad was a collaborative effort involving diverse individuals and communities throughout the country,” the postal service told The Sun in an email. “It demonstrated the power of collective action and solidarity in achieving social change, even when the odds seemed insurmountable.”

Each Forever stamp will cost 68 cents, and the multistamp design will be $13.60. Forever stamps, created in 2007, can be used to mail first-class letters no matter the postal rate.

The postal service will produce one print run of commemorative issuances of the Underground Railroad stamp with the goal of keeping a sales window open for one to two years.

_____