‘An amazing story.’ The Underground Railroad, an opera and a UK basketball superstar | Opinion
In 1850, Peter Friedman made his way to Philadelphia after more than 40 years of enslavement.
He was told to visit a man named William Still, who had helped hundreds of enslaved people making their way north on the Underground Railroad. William Still interviewed all the people he helped, a set of records later turned into the seminal book “The Underground Railroad Records,” published in 1872.
Peter Still started telling a story that was strangely familiar to William. He was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and escaped once, only to be recaptured and returned. His mother’s name was Sidney and his father’s name was Levin, and she and his two sisters escaped again, this time successfully.
It turned out that Peter and William were brothers, separated by generations and the crush of chattel slavery. Then, Peter was reunited with his mother, Sidney, after 42 years apart.
This is just one of the incredible stories now being told in an opera called “Sanctuary Road,” which will debut in Lexington on March 7. Composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell wrote an oratorio based on Still’s records in 2018 and then later turned it into an opera.
But in the mysterious ways of this small world, it’s particularly appropriate that it will be performed in Lexington because after being recaptured, Peter and Levin Jr. were sent to Lexington where they were enslaved by a local bricklayer.
Eventually, they were sold again and ended up in Alabama, where Levin died, apparently from the after-effects of a brutal beating he suffered for marrying someone who his owner did not approve.
In an even stranger twist, the opera will be attended by Valerie Still, the top basketball scorer for men or women in UK history, who happens to be a descendant of William Still. She’s the great-great granddaughter of his brother, James Still, one of the earliest Black physicians.
Her brother, Art Still, an All-American defensive end at UK who went on to play for the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs, will also be there.
“I really believe the spirits of the ancestors are so strong,” Valerie Still said in a recent interview. “The irony of my brother and I ending up in Lexington, just a few blocks away from where the brothers were sold is incredible.”
An amazing story
The opera, which will run March 7-9 at the Lexington Opera House, will be directed by Everett McCorvey, director of the University of Kentucky Opera Theater and founder of the American Spiritual Ensemble. He’s already conducted the piece in Pennsylvania and Virginia along with Dennis Whitehead Darling as stage director.
“It’s such an amazing story,” he said. “During the 250th anniversary of Lexington, this was a story that had to be told.”
The production received a 250Lex cultural grant as well. Celebrated Lexington singer Michael Preacely will play William Still. McCorvey said they would have liked to schedule it during Black History Month, but he’s also conducting an opera about civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer in Louisville in February.
The opera is a series of stories told to William Still, including that of Henry Box Brown, an enslaved man in Virginia who had himself nailed into a crate and mailed it to Philadelphia.
But the main emphasis is on the Stills, not just William, but the tragic story of Peter and Levin Jr.
Local historian Yvonne Giles learned through reading the 1856 narrative of Peter, that they were bought by John Fisher, who operated a brickyard near Henry Clay’s Ashland Estate.
According to Peter’s account, John Fisher sold them privately to Nathaniel Gist about 1812. Gist, who left them both to his nephews, who took them to Alabama. Peter was then sold to two Jewish brothers, the Friedmans, who agreed to let him buy his freedom.
He made his way to Pennsylvania and was later reunited with his mother, brothers, sisters and their families in New Jersey.
It would take Peter three years to raise the $5,000 to free his wife, sons and daughter in Alabama. He met them in Cincinnati before they moved to New Jersey.
His saga is also recounted by Kate Pickard in “The Kidnapped and the Ransomed; being the personal recollections of Peter Still and his wife “Vina,” after forty years of slavery,” as told to his biographer Kate E. R. Pickard and published in 1856.
Teaching ways to overcome
Valerie Still said that growing up poor in Camden, N.J., as one of 10 children, she didn’t know much about her Still heritage, especially not the story of William Still.
She followed her adored brother, Art, to UK, and became an athletic superstar like him, first playing professionally in Europe and then in the American Basketball League, a precursor of the WNBA in Columbus.
But after she had a son, Aaron Still Lock, and noticed the meager Black history served up in suburban schools, she got more interested in her heritage.
In 2004 she enrolled at Ohio State University for a master’s degree in African and African American studies and started the long journey of researching the Still family.
Along the way, Valerie Still created a foundation and a coffee company but always kept working on the many interesting people in her family. James Still, for example, was kept out of medical schools at the time, but became known as the “Black Doctor of the Pines” for his skill in herb-based healing. His son, James Thomas Still, was the first Black graduate from Harvard Medical School in 1871.
William Still’s daughter, Caroline, became the first Black woman doctor in the country.
Still kept researching and started writing, and next year will publish a history of the Still family with the University Press of Kentucky titled “STILL Family: Legacy of the Underground Railroad.”
“I wanted this to be published by UK, because of my ties to UK and my ties to Kentucky ...I want people to connect the dots,” she said.
Along the way, she met Lexington historian Yvonne Giles, who gave her more facts about the Stills, and introduced her to the Freedom Train project, which will establish an Underground Railroad monument to Harriet and Lewis Hayden. They’re a formerly enslaved couple from Lexington who escaped to Boston and knew William Still.
Valerie Still became a supporter of the project, and after the opening night performance, will be part of a fundraiser for the project.
Still speaks often of “generational wealth,” that her family left her. That’s not the traditional idea of financial security.
“What they taught me is how to overcome,” she said. “You can try to beat me down, but it’s not going to work.”
She hasn’t yet seen “Sanctuary Road,” but she hopes it will convey what she believes is the most important legacy of William Still.
“He focused in on all those individuals who had escaped, not the white abolitionists,” she said. “He focused on people who knew they might be enslaved, but that was only temporary.
“They would manifest being free. That’s generational wealth right there.”
Sanctuary Road will run from March 7-9 at the Lexington Opera House. The March 7 performance will be followed by a fundraising event for the Lexington Freedom Train project with Valerie and Art Still as special guests. For tickets and more information, go to https://finearts.uky.edu/music/events/sanctuary-road
This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 6:51 AM.
