His School Put Together A Traumatizing Underground Railroad Simulation At A Campground In The Middle Of Nowhere

When TikToker Cameron (@cameronrohpovs) was 10 years old, his school sent his entire 5th-grade class to a random campground in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, where they had to participate in a real-life simulation of the Underground Railroad. All the kids had to pretend they were runaway slaves.

Until recently, he thought this was an experience that schools in all 50 states across the United States provided. But it turns out that only a select few schools in Ohio put on the simulation.

Cameron recalls his 5th-grade class being excited for this experience because the grades above them really hyped it up. It took place at Camp Campbell Gard.

On the first evening, they started off the Underground Railroad simulation with an auction, where the students were blindfolded and auctioned off.

"There were adults picking and choosing between who was worth more and who was worth less between the students, and we're all blindfolded, so we really don't know what's going on," said Cameron.

The adults acted as slave owners and masters with real whips, axes, and other weapons. They even carried guns, which were probably props, but they made it as realistic as they could.

Before arriving at the camp, the students had to learn and memorize two or three slave songs, so they could sing them during the simulation. One of the songs was called Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

Cameron also said that if you were caught smiling, laughing, or not taking the simulation seriously, you were forced to put your face in the mud and count to 10.

"Some of my most vivid memories of this experience includes when me and two of my friends were caught kind of not really taking it seriously," said Cameron.

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"We were caught by one of the slave masters or one of the guards, and we were forced to put our faces in the mud, and the rest of the group left us."

"We sat there for like a good 30 seconds, and we got lost because the rest of the group just went off as our faces were down in the mud. He had this axe and was throwing it in the ground in front of our faces and at our feet, and it felt real."

The kids also had to go from location to location since the Underground Railroad consisted of houses where people were helping runaway slaves get to freedom.

Cameron remembers knocking on the door of a house where a sweet, old lady lived. They had to sing to her and pretend to be a church choir. She took them up to the attic and hid them behind a secret wall in the house.

As they were hiding, they heard a knock on the front door. The old lady answered the door. It was a guard looking for runaway slaves, and he asked if the lady was housing any. She told him that no one was there, and he proceeded to shoot her. Obviously, it was fake, but it was still traumatizing for the kids.

By the end of the simulation, everyone sat down in a circle, and the camp counselors asked them what they had learned from the experience.

Cameron recalls seeing his friends crying their eyes out during this experience because of how scary it was. His grade or the grade below them were the last ones to participate in the Underground Railroad simulation.

"I understand that the Underground Railroad was like a real-life thing that happened and people had to experience it, and it was tragic, but like, you didn't have to ship us off to a camp in the middle of nowhere and make us participate in a real-life simulation at 10 years old," Cameron declared.

Now, he's wondering who came up with the idea in the first place and how it was even legal to do.