There is a secret history that suffuses the entire city of Memphis.
It is a history of suffering, struggle and redemption -- a sad shameful story kept in a dark corner for far too long.
Of course, it can't be found at the feet of our city's great architectural achievements, like the Pyramid or the Coliseum. It doesn't exist in our teeming shopping sectors, like Cordova or the newly-renovated downtown Peabody Place.
Such a history exists below the surface.
Like at 826 North Second Street, in the dilapidated Burkle House, tucked away in a corner of Memphis that time forgot, in a neighborhood of vacant lots, boarded-up houses and deferred dreams.
February is Black History Month, and there's no better place to begin an observance of it than at this venerable Memphis home.
Little is known about the original owner of the estate, James Burkle, who immigrated to Memphis in 1850 from Germany to avoid being drafted as a soldier in a war he didn't want to fight.
What he wanted when he got here, instead, was to build the prosperous Memphis stockyards, located near the roaring Mississippi River. He wanted to improve his social status, which his new wealth as the stockyard owner enabled him to do. Before he knew it, he was welcomed by leading Southern socialites as one of their own.
And that's where his story moves from the certain to the speculative.
While little is known about Burkle's history, even less is known about the history of his home, believed by many to have been a critical stop on the secret road to freedom for many slaves.
"Folklore persists," reads the Tennessee Historical Marker outside of the house, for slaves escaping to freedom on the Underground Railroad."
The Burkle Estate is managed by the Slavehaven/Underground Railroad Association, a non-profit organization, in conjunction with Heritage Tours of Memphis, and tells volumes about the history of one of the most racially divided cities in the South.
"We want this part of history to be known," said Elaine Turner, one of the owners of Heritage Tours. "It's important for people to have an understanding of what was involved in the slave trade, and in the system of slavery -- to understand the human tragedies that occurred."
The house serves as a reminder that Memphis was once a thriving distribution center for slave labor. According to some records, in the years before the Civil War, Memphis was the largest such center in the Mid-South.
There are advertisements from local papers on display throughout the house. "Negroes wanted," reads one. Another announces an upcoming slave auction to be held a few blocks away from the house, on Adams Street. There are plenty more notices of lucrative reward offers for turning in runaways.
In the front hall of the house are artifacts that tell the history of the slave trade. There are quilts in one of the bedrooms that the estate's tour guide, a man who calls himself Ekpe, says were used as code to show slaves how to escape to freedom.
"Every design on the quilt was something that translated to the real world," he said. "The knots in the quilt, for example, represented distances from place to place."
In one of the side rooms of the house, there is a heavy trapdoor that, when opened, reveals a rickety set of stairs leading down to a cramped, dusty cellar.
"The slaves would stay hidden here, huddled together, and they never knew for how long," said Ekpe.
He said that when the time was right to send out slaves to the next stop, Burkle would bribe riverboat captains and send them on their way. Most slaves, it is believed, went directly on to Canada via Cairo, Ill.
"Burkle even put out the occasional 'runaway slave notice," once he was sure his slaves had made it to freedom, just so he could deep up his Southern gentleman appearance," said Ekpe.
As for the question of whether or not the house was a stop on the famed Underground Railroad, no primary records exist to corroborate the claim. Burkle's descendants have made sure that every document that could prove it has been destroyed.
Nothing is left now but the area's folklore and the stories passed down through the generations of families in the area.
"But that's understandable," said Ekpe. "He wasnt' going to announce what he had done just because the (Civil) War was over."
Even so, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, and many people are convinced. "We feel very confident that this was a way station on the Underground Railroad," said Turner.
Aside from the question of whether or not it was once part of the famed Railroad, the house is still a living history lesson.
There are long church pews in one room, where freed slaves gathered together to learn to read and write. A pair of whips hangs on one wall.
There are pictures of slaves with horrific scars, knapsacks for carrying cotton and heavy iron shackles displayed in the house.
In one of the rooms is a quote printed from black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey.
"No one knows when the hour of Africa's redemption cometh," the leader once said. "It is in the wind, It is coming. One day like a storm, it will be here. When that day comes, all of Africa will stand together."
