Dissway ta votes foh da Big Injun lady, y'all, YESSAH..!"
Dissway ta votes foh da Big Injun lady, y'all, YESSAH..!"
Underground Railroad communication tool[edit]
Charles L. Blockson,[2] Curator Emeritus of the Afro-American Collection at Temple University in Philadelphia and author of Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad, claims that the figures were used in the days of the Underground Railroad to guide escaping slaves to freedom: “Green ribbons were tied to the arms of the statue to indicate safety; red ribbons meant to keep going ... People who don’t know the history of the jockey have feelings of humiliation and anger when they see the statue ...”[3].
Blockson installed an example of the statue at the entrance to Temple University’s Sullivan Hall.
Patterns of and markings on the clothing of the statues also are said to have indicated messages understood by fleeing slaves. Blockson’s claim to the contemporary use of color in signalling is substantiated by the Congressional 1848 act [4] which resulted in standardizing red and green colors for channel marker buoys.