Teacher walks 500 miles in escaped slaves’ footsteps

Barry Jurgensen, a 32-year-old Nebraska history teacher, is walking more than 500 miles from Nebraska City, Neb., to Chicago this summer, in honor of two women who traveled the same route in 1858 to escape slavery.

He also is raising money during his walk for the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and its work to introduce human trafficking prevention education into secondary schools.

The women, Eliza Grayson and Celia, whose last name is unknown, had survived years of sexual abuse, Jurgensen said. Young people caught up in human trafficking are subjected to that type of abuse today, Jurgensen said, and he wants his Walk Forever Free project to raise awareness of such trafficking.

'Human trafficking is slavery,” he said by cellphone on Thursday as he was entering Marengo. 'Slavery is human trafficking.”

Jurgensen will be in Iowa City Saturday and will speak at the Iowa City Pride festival. Event listings can be found at iowacitypride.com.