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Broadneck High School Seniors Honored At Maryland History Day Event

June 7, 2021

Severna Park Voice, June 2, 2021
by Alyson Kay
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A screenshot of a website. The backgroudn is tan and says "A Passage To Freedom: The Underground Railroad." Under it, text says "Home Thesis Background Communication. People Gallery Resources." A quote in white font on a dark brown box says, " “I have observed this in my experience of slavery,--that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason." The quote is attributed to Frederick Douglass. Under it are two illustrations. One of enslaved people helping each other escape. In the other, they find freedom in Canada. — A screenshot of Gabriella Mills and Natalie Smith’s website

Two Broadneck High School seniors were recognized with a special award at the virtual 2021 Maryland History Day awards ceremony held on May 2. Gabriella Mills and Natalie Smith won the Excellence in Maryland History, Senior Division honor for their website “A Passage to Freedom: The Underground Railroad.”

Maryland History Day is a program of Maryland Humanities. This year’s contest theme was “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.” Because the topic of communication is so vast, Smith and Mills picked a topic that people wouldn’t normally associate with communication.

Natalie Smith

“We found all these really cool ways of indirect and nonverbal communication on the Underground Railroad and so we really thought it’d be cool to highlight that because it kind of spins the topic in a new way,” Smith said.

Read the full article.

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