The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center will open in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio in the summer of 2004.

The museum is based on the history of the Underground Railroad, but also pays tribute to all efforts to "abolish human enslavement and secure freedom for all people." The Freedom Center will offer lessons on the struggle for freedom in the past, in the present, and for the future. Its location recognizes the significant role of Cincinnati, where thousands of slaves escaped to freedom by crossing the Ohio River, in the history of the Underground Railroad.

Table of contents

1 The Structure 2 Slave Pen 3 Other Features 4 References 5 External Link

The Structure

The 158,000-square-foot structure was designed by Blackburn Architects of Indianapolis and BOORA Architects of Portland, Oregon with three pavilions celebrating courage, cooperation and perseverance. The exterior features rough travertine stone from Tivoli, Italy on the east and west faces of the building, and copper panels on the north and south. According to its architect, Walter Blackburn, the building's "undulating quality" illustrates the fields and the river that escaping slaves crossed to reach freedom. First Lady Laura Bush and Muhammad Ali attended the groundbreaking ceremony on June 17, 2002.

Slave Pen

The center's principal artifact is a 21- by 30-foot, two-story log slave pen built in 1830 that was used to house slaves being shipped to auction. The structure was moved from a farm in Mason County, Kentucky and dominates the second-floor atrium. The pen has eight small windows, a fireplace, and a row of wrought iron rings through which a central chain ran, tethering men on either side of the chain. Slaves were imprisoned there for a few days or several months, waiting for favorable market conditions and higher selling prices.

"The pen is powerful," says Carl B. Westmoreland, curator and senior adviser to the museum. "It has the feeling of hallowed ground. When people stand inside, they speak in whispers. It is a sacred place. I believe it is here to tell a story - the story of the internal slave trade to future generations." Visitors to the museum can walk through the holding pen and touch its walls.

Westmoreland spent three and a half years uncovering the story of the slave jail. "We're just beginning to remember. There is a hidden history right below the surface, part of the unspoken vocabulary of the American historic landscape. It's nothing but a pile of logs, yet it is everything."

Other Features

Other prominent features of the Center include:

• The film "Suite for Freedom" which addresses the fragile nature of freedom throughout human history, particularly as related to the institution of slavery in the United States.
• A presentation and interactive display about the Underground Railroad designed for school groups and families with young children, featuring figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.
• A theater experience, "Brothers of the Borderland," highlighting the story of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio River valley.
• Information about the history of slavery and those who opposed it, including Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War.
• An exhibit depicting the ongoing challenges confronted by African-Americans since the end of slavery, as well ways that the Underground Railroad has inspired groups in India, Poland and South Africa.
• A library of multimedia materials related to the museum's themes.

The Freedom Center´s CEO, Spencer Crew, was previously the director of the Smithsonian Institution´s National Museum of American History.

References

• Bauer, Marilyn (February 8, 2004). Slave pen now holds history. The Cincinnati Enquirer.
• Brown, Patricia Leigh (May 6, 2003). In a Barn, a Piece of Slavery's Hidden Past. The New York Times.

External Link

• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center site

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