Colson Whitehead Reimagines the Underground Railroad

When children learn about the Underground Railroad, it’s not uncommon for them to mistake it for an actual train line. The novelist Colson Whitehead took that misconception and ran with it in his new novel, “The Underground Railroad.” Whitehead and The New Yorker’s executive editor, Dorothy Wickenden, stop by two sites in lower Manhattan where fugitive slaves, including Frederick Douglass, hid. 

Read Kathryn Schultz's critic's piece about The Underground Railroad on newyorker.com.