Community, Park Forest

Park Forest Library’s Potpourri of Lecture Series to Feature Presentation on the Underground Railroad


Jan and Aagje Ton Memorial Garden
Jan and Aagje Ton Memorial Garden, South Holland, IL

Park Forest, IL—(ENEWSPF)—February 1, 2018

By: Rosemary Piser

The Park Forest Library’s Potpourri of Lecture Series on Thursday, February 8 will feature a presentation about the Underground Railroad in the Calumet region and northeast Illinois. The presentation will be by Larry McClellan and Tom Shepherd. The lecture begins at 10:30 a.m. in the Library’s Ringering Room. The Park Forest Library is located at 400 Lakewood Boulevard. The event is free and open to the public.

Retired professor Larry McClellan will discuss the Underground Railroad in the Calumet region and northeast Illinois and the courageous flights of slaves along the Underground Railroad. He will be joined by Tom Shepherd, who is leading a group working to establish a monument to the Underground Railroad on the Little Calumet River, where a “safe house” was located that was owned by abolitionists Jan and Aagje Ton.

Larry McClellan is a published historian and retired sociology professor. He currently is completing book manuscripts entitled “To the River, the Remarkable Journey of Caroline Quarlls” (freedom seeker from St. Louis), and “Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Illinois” a regional history south of Chicago. After graduate work at the University of Chicago in 1970, McClellan helped found Governors State University and served with the University for 30 years. For many years, he was University Professor of Sociology and Community Studies, and was Executive Director of the South Metropolitan Regional Leadership Center for six years. In the mid-70s, he was mayor of University Park (then Park Forest South).


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