It’s common knowledge that the real-life Underground Railroad was a network of white and BIPOC abolitionists - some of whom had been previously enslaved themselves - who worked to smuggle runaways from Southern plantations to free states, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Canada. Here’s what you need to know about fact and fiction in The Underground Railroad: The Underground Railroad The limited series stars Thuso Mbedu ( Side Dish) as Cora, Aaron Pierre ( Krypton) as Caesar, Joel Edgerton ( The King) as Ridgeway, William Jackson Harper ( The Good Place) as Royal, and Zsane Jhe ( Watchmen) as Lovey. But only one person stays with her for the entire length of her flight: the slave catcher, Ridgeway, who remains on her heels every step of the way.ĭirected by Moonlight writer-director Barry Jenkins, Prime Video’s The Underground Railroad is streaming now. Cora is accompanied by a number of compatriots - including Lovey, Caesar, and Royal - as she travels from Georgia through South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, and beyond. The Underground Railroad follows Cora, a woman born into slavery on a Georgia plantation, as she undertakes an epic journey across the United States in search of her freedom.

Major spoilers for The Underground Railroad follow. What makes the novel so compelling is its inventive take on the antebellum American South - but Whitehead’s magical realism may spur some readers (and now, viewers) to wonder how much of The Underground Railroad is based on real history. Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad has been adapted into an Amazon Prime Video limited series, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. The winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is streaming now on a screen near you.

The overground railroad