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Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story celebrating 10 years

The Historic Odessa Foundation
The Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa

The Historic Odessa Foundation is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its educational program focused on the Underground Railroad.

It’s called Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story.

It focuses on a fugitive slave named Sam, who in 1845 found himself at Odessa’s Corbit-Sharp House - a stop on the Underground Railroad.

 

“Sam came into the Odessa area on foot from the west, hid during the day and real early on the following morning he knocked on the door of the Corbit-Sharp House and asked for refuge,” said HOF education curator Johnnye Baker.

The program launched in 2009 shortly after Corbit-Sharp House was added to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom by the National Park Service.

Baker says creating Freedom Seekers was a challenge, “One of the things that we found when we were starting to design this program, is that, sticking to authentic facts was sometimes with this subject a little bit difficult.”

Baker explains that’s because a fair amount of urban legend grew up around stories of the Underground Railroad here in the First State.

For more information on Freedom Seekers: The Odessa Story, as well as the Historic Odessa Foundation’s 2019 season tours, special exhibits, events, and Living History Education Program, click here.

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.