EDINBURG, Texas (Border Report) — The sun wasn’t up yet Wednesday when a dozen people began to gather at an all-Black cemetery in this South Texas border town as they prepared to retrace the steps that slaves took on the Underground Railroad.
The group walked 13 miles on Wednesday, which was Day 3 of a weeklong event called “Walking the Southern Roads to Freedom.”
Participants will walk a total of 65 miles through Rio Grande Valley this week to recreate the trails and treks that former slaves endured over a hundred years ago seeking to get south to Mexico to freedom.
“After the Mexican-American War in 1850 the enslaved people on the lower end, the southern end, were able to come across because Mexico would accept them and not send them back. So that’s why this was very, very important,” Linda Harris, director of the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center in Cambridge, Maryland, told Border Report.
Harris came to the South Texas border and helped organize the walks with Roseann Bacha-Garza, manager of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS). They also had help from several church leaders.
“It’s been amazing. It’s better than I even dreamed it could be,” Bacha-Garza told Border Report as she prepared to put on a reflective yellow vest and gather participants for the start of Wednesday’s trek.
The group began at Restlawn Cemetery, a historic state cemetery believed to be the only graveyard in Hidalgo County dedicated to African American burials, according to a historic marker put by the State of Texas.
They walked on busy feeder roads beside a major highway and into quieter neighborhoods. They tracked their steps on social media, some livestreaming, and taking photos.
And most marveled that those who traveled this route to freedom in the 1800s had none of these devices and they had to be quiet and often were being pursued.
“There was wild animals. They didn’t have nice shoes, comfortable shoes, like we have. They were pursued. And we’re walking, you know, very comfortably, talking to each other. And they had to be quiet. They had to be cautious,” said Sharon Smith, who came with her husband, Michael Smith, who is a pastor in McAllen. “It really made you think they went through a lot for freedom for us, and, you know, it was just very special to do.”
The Smiths were part of the planning committee that helped to organize the events, which will culminate this weekend on Saturday with participants walking to the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, which leads to Reynosa, Mexico, and ending Sunday at Bethel Garden Park in McAllen, a historic Texas landmark that was one of the first African-American churches in Hidalgo County.
On Wednesday, they walked the equivalent of a half-marathon distance from Edinburg to Alamo and passed areas where from1910 to 1920 La Matanza occurred. That’s where 21 Mexican-Americans were killed by Texas Rangers in 1915, and several lynchings and periods of sustained lynching against Mexican-Americans ensued.
Bacha-Garza says in addition to honoring the Underground Railroad, they also wanted to show other historic sites.
“We want to honor the travels of freedom seekers through South Texas into Mexico as they cross, you know, over the Rio Grande. But on our way there, we want to see other locations of significance to people of color in our region,” Bacha-Garza said.
“It’s not easy walking, you know, long distances, but you know, people have told me, as we’re walking that they are feeling the spirit of the ancestors, and they carry us. And it’s, it’s a beautiful thing,” Harris said.
She said she was drawn to South Texas after reading an article about the Underground Railroad and a cemetery that holds the remains of a family that helped slaves cross from what is now Pharr, Texas, into northern Mexico.
“About Nathaniel Jackson and what drew me in was the writer said he was buried at Trump’s border wall, and my antennas went up, and I said, ‘I got to go there, and I have to walk the southern Underground Railroad,’ and that’s why I’m here,” Harris said.
The Jackson Ranch Church and Cemetery are scheduled destinations the group will walk to Friday.
Registration for the walk is free and can be done through the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center at its website here.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@Borderreport.com.
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