FREMONT, Neb. (AP) - A high school teacher in Arlington is preparing for a nearly 500-mile walk to raise awareness for modern-day slavery and funds for an abolitionist organization.
The Fremont Tribune (https://bit.ly/1UYPyab ) reports that Arlington High School history teacher Barry Jurgensen will embark on a month-long walk from Nebraska City to Chicago starting June 1.
Through the trek, called the Walk Forever Free, Jurgensen hopes to raise $25,000 for Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives. The organization was founded by direct descendants of Douglass and Booker T. Washington and brings human trafficking prevention education into high schools.
Jurgensen’s route will retrace that of two teenage slave girls, Eliza and Celia, who ran away from their slave holder, Stephen F. Nuckolls, in 1858. Eliza reached Chicago with the help of other people on the Underground Railroad, but it’s unknown what happened to Celia.
Jurgensen extensively researched the Underground Railroad as an undergraduate and has known the teens’ story for years. He said he’s wanted to retrace their route and do something to fight modern-day slavery for a long time.
He noted that women have been abducted and forced into prostitution for hundreds of years.
“I think, sometimes, people think that prostitutes are in that type of situation, because they want to be or they have nowhere else to go, but that’s not the fact,” he said. “There are thousands of women, girls and boys that are forced into this and they’re treated very poorly and it’s horrible.”
He said that history can help give people motivation to help fight present-day slavery.
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Information from: Fremont Tribune, https://www.fremontneb.com
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