Riding the Underground: Cyclists pass through Southern Indiana on 2,100 mile trek
By MATTHEW RALPH
Matthew.Ralph@newsandtribune.com
A group of road-weary travelers wearing brightly colored jackets and riding on bicycles made their way through the backroads of Southern Indiana this week, following sleepy roads along the Ohio River to a key stop in their 2,100-mile trek.
“This is a destination,” said Stephen Thomas as he stood near the rain-soaked steps of the Carnegie Center for Art & History in New Albany on Thursday afternoon.
Thomas — the 54-year-old director of the Center for Minority Health at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health — is one of 18 riders officially marking the opening of a new bicycle route that traces the history of the Underground Railroad, a name given to a vast network of people and places who helped fugitive slaves escape to the northern U.S. states and Canada.
The stop in New Albany is one of dozens of destinations along the Mobile, Ala., to Ontario, Canada, route because of its Underground Railroad exhibit at Carnegie and its proximity to a river many slaves crossed en route to freedom. The exhibit, opened a year ago, is up for a national museums award in Chicago later this month.
“What I like about this exhibit is that it’s permanent,” Thomas said. “That says a lot.”
Thomas and the other riders — whose ages average out to about 60 — dipped their wheels in the Mobile Bay on April 14 and plan to do the same in Lake Ontario on May 30.
To get there, the group is traveling up to 70 miles a day.
Mario Browne, 45, the project director for the Center for Minority Health, said it was important for he and Thomas to ride the route they are promoting as a way to encourage blacks — disproportionately affected by heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control — to adopt healthy lifetime activities such cycling.
The journey has been taxing, the riders say.
“I’m in pain, but not nearly as much as our ancestors were,” said Thomas, who wore a brightly colored bike suit with a design incorporating a line drawing of a slave with a knapsack and the words “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” a reference to the Big Dipper constellation and the North Star, which served as a guide to the fleeing slaves.
A detailed waterproof map created by Adventure Cycling — a national cycling organization that partnered with the Center for Minority Health to create the route — serves as the guide for the travelers.
And while there are paved roads and all the amenities the modern world has to offer along the way, the cyclists “rough it,” camping out and sleeping in school gymnasiums and wherever else the generosity of local people they encounter have to offer.
For Alvin Justelien, the group’s leader, or “conductor” as the others like to call him, the journey so far has been a lesson not only in the dark history of the country and the struggles slaves overcame to gain freedom, but also a reminder of the warm side of the human spirit.
“We find people really are good,” said Justelien, 48, of Prairieville, La., as he walked through the exhibit at the Carnegie Center. “We bring up a lot of curiosity when we come through, and people always respond with kindness.”
Norman Peterson — a 39-year-old nurse from Pittsburgh who joined the trip as a way to promote an active lifestyle and encourage other black males to go into the medical profession — said he encountered that altruistic spirit shortly after entering Floyd County.
Peterson broke a spoke on one of his tires and stopped off at a Thorntons looking for some help. He said a guy named Jim he met there offered him a lift to a bike shop in Charlestown to get his wheel fixed and then drove him back to the Carnegie Center.
“The random acts of kindness we have experienced have been incredible,” Peterson said.
Dialogue has also been key, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center nurse said, noting that on several occasions in former slave states he encountered people he talked to about the historical significance of their journey.
“You can see in many people we’ve met how much the attitudes in the South have changed,” Peterson said. “I can walk into a shop and carry on a conversation with someone without race being an issue.”
After stopping at the Carnegie Center, the group road another 20 miles to their overnight stop at the Charlestown State Park.
Suellen Wilkerson, director of development for the Carnegie Center, said having the center on the highly-publicized bicycle route is “thrilling.”
“We get to share our history and heritage with people from all over America,” Wilkerson said. “It’s exciting and of course it’s good for the downtown too.”
Local man ready to roll
Anticipating his 60th birthday this summer, Greg Gapsis plans to finish a long bike ride while he’s still in his 50s.
A history buff, the IU Southeast instructor and former reporter for The Evening News and The Tribune decided he would take the Underground Railroad route from New Albany to Canada.
“For me it’s a combination of historical curiosity, taking up cycling as a personal health matter and doing something challenging with a broad concept to celebrate my birthday,” Gapsis said.
The Floyds Knobs resident has been training for the trip since February and plans to leave Monday morning.
Gapsis met up with the group of 18 riders taking a maiden voyage of the route when they visited the Carnegie Center for Art & History on Thursday afternoon.
He said meeting the group about halfway through their 2,100-mile trek was an inspiration for his own journey, which he will do “self-supported,” camping out and relying on the generosity of people and churches along the way to provide shelter and a warm shower.
He said he plans to travel 50 to 70 miles a day and arrive in Ontario by the end of the month.
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