Book excerpt: Quaker safe houses and freed slave communities were a fixture in North Carolina. The Coffin family in Greensboro helped develop safe zones and houses on the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. In the east, networks of freedmen and sympathizers aided slaves, hiding in remote locations such as the Dismal Swamp. In coastal towns like New Bern and Wilmington, slaves were secreted aboard ships in search of freedom along maritime routes. Authors Tim Allen and Steve Miller use harrowing firsthand accounts to investigate how African Americans escaped oppression in a dark chapter of Tarheel State history.