Mar 10, 2025 - Things to Do

New exhibit shows Texas' role in the Underground Railroad

Photo collage of the Mexican flag, an archival drawing of a plantation, a photo of two boys at a wagon, an old map of Mexico, and a Mexican church — Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images

A new exhibit at the Plano African American Museum focuses on the women who organized the Underground Railroad to Mexico, a lesser-known route that helped enslaved people escape to freedom.

Why it matters: Historians have known for decades that some enslaved Black people in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alabama escaped slavery by heading south.

The latest: The Plano museum's exhibit, "Risking It All For Freedom," was partly organized by the descendants of Silvia Hector Webber, known as the Harriet Tubman of Texas.

The exhibit will be on display through May 3. Admission is free.

Flashback: Oral histories, archives of slave escape ads, and narratives of formerly enslaved people show that fleeing to Mexico had been a possibility leading up to the U.S. Civil War.

Abolitionists wrote about "colonies" of formerly enslaved Black people popping up in towns across northern Mexico, which had abolished slavery in the 1830s.

Yes, but: How many people fled south of the border remained a mystery, and historians debate just how well-organized the network was.

Zoom out: A 60-mile walk held last week in South Texas drew attention to a largely forgotten episode of Black/Latino history.

The event included sites that served as a gateway to Mexico for enslaved people seeking freedom.

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New exhibit shows Texas' role in the Underground Railroad

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