An Underground Railroad researcher from Kansas City, Jenkins has produced two major documentaries on the antebellum history of Kansas and Missouri, Negroes to Hire, which is based on stories from the American Slave Narratives gathered from 1936-38 and which won the Historical Film of 2010 award from the Jackson County Missouri Historical Society, and Freedom Seekers: The Underground Railroad on the Western Frontier. Today he talks about how he became interested in this history and what led him to produce Negroes to Hire. We also play a short clip from the film. This is the first of a two-part interview. Next week we discuss Freedom Seekers.