Historian Retraces Underground Railroad in a 750-Mile Stroll

America's 250th birthday is getting marked by fireworks and speeches, as well as a 750-mile walk along a shadow route of its past. Historian Anthony Cohen, 62, is retracing a segment of the Underground Railroad from Sandy Spring, Maryland, to Toronto, a path once used by enslaved people escaping to Canada, per CBS News. It's his second such journey: In 1996 he walked from Maryland to Ontario, later founding the Menare Foundation to create immersive programs about the secret network that ferried people to freedom. "I wanted to honor Black history, which is American history, and I wanted to travel and meet with everyday Americans," Cohen says, per NBC Washington.

Cohen's "Freedom Walk" threads through Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, mostly on foot but with some train travel that mirrors historic routes, per CBS. Along the way, he's stopping for public events, joined by the traveling Harriet Tubman "Journey to Freedom" statue and by Tom DeWolf, whose ancestors were once the nation's largest slave traders. Cohen told DeWolf he could "write a new legacy" by participating. Together they discuss slavery, the Underground Railroad, and how the walk connects past and present. Cohen was set to cross into Canada on Wednesday and reach Toronto on July 4, timing his finish with the United States' 250th Independence Day.