‘Their stories need to be told’: the true story behind The Underground Railroad

Barry Jenkins' acclaimed 10-part adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel shines much-needed light on a history that many still don't know

Don't be fooled by the train carriage. The Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum might be housed inside one but its content has nothing to do with railways. Its true genesis lies across the street in the Pamlico River, once used as an avenue of escape by enslaved African Americans seeking freedom.

Leesa Jones, cofounder and executive director of the museum, says: We realised through reading copious documents and old slave ads from Washington newspapers that would say things like, My slave has escaped, they're going to try to get to Washington to board a ship to get to their freedom', that we wanted to tell an accurate story of how freedom seekers left from the Washington waterfront."