Historians: Slave code's a myth

"If you were a slave trying to escape bondage in the pre-Civil War Deep South, what would you do?

A. Look at fences to see if someone hung up quilts with coded patterns telling you when to run, what to take, where to go.

B. Go to a big town in the South and try to blend in with free blacks.

C. Get to a port and take a boat.

If you answered A, you may have read a book that claims slave-made quilts reveal codes that were part of an oral tradition that was secret until a few years ago. Or you may have seen the slave-quilt exhibit at the Plymouth Historical Museum, on display through June 20.

According to historians, only B and C are correct." Read on.

photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org