For more than three decades, students have reënacted escapes on the Underground Railroad at schools, camps, churches, museums, and juvenile-correction centers across the United States. Millions have undergone an experience that can range from a board game to an immersive nightlong ordeal, complete with horseback-riding paddy rollers and an armed Harriet Tubman. One group’s living-history lesson is another’s exercise in leadership training, anti-racist therapy, or even behavioral reform. Many believe that Underground Railroad Reënactments, or U.G.R.R.s, have the power to morally transform American youth.
