Harvey Robinson, recipient of the 2012 Martin Luther King Lifetime Achievement Award, reads several passages from the Bible to open the program. (James Mann | jmann@winchestersun.com) |
Dr. Alicestyne Turley of the Underground Railroad Research Institute at the University of Louisville was the guest speaker Friday during The Generations Center Annual Celebration of Unity Black History program. Turley talked about the underground railroad and of a slave, George French Ecton, who escaped from his owners on Ecton Road just outside of Winchester around 1865. Ecton made his way to Cincinnati and eventually to Chicago, Ill., where it is believed he was the first black to be elected to the Illinois 35th General Assembly.
