50th anniversary gift idea

THEY were people like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. They were also people like Arnold Gragston, David Ruggles, Calvin Fairbank, Josiah Henson, and Erastus Hussey, lesser known--but no less important--figures in the lexicon of Black American history.

With the mantra, "Liberty or death. If I can't have one, then I'd rather have the other," these heroic individuals--and countless others who may never be known--played an integral role in orchestrating the Underground Railroad, a loose string of routes, safe houses and secret hideaways that unraveled one of the worst forms of bondage the world has ever known.

These "conductors," abolitionists and White sympathizers helped some 100,000 slaves who fled the South, making a harrowing journey hundreds of miles North with little more than hope, faith, and stories of freedom to guide them.

It was across the water now known as the Ohio River, to a free land now known as Cincinnati, that many slaves tasted their first freedom. And even though Cincinnati was more of a pass-through city than a final destination, and the Underground Railroad was a continuation of at least 500 years of people seeking the promise of equality across the globe, it was at this place and time in American History that the perpetual struggle between slaves and those who enslave--between freedom and unfreedom--experienced its most defining moment.

And today, after some 150 years of reflection and a decade of planning, one of the most painful chapters in American history has a dedicated and poignant place--the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center on the northern bank of the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati--to honor its champions.

The Freedom Center was conceived in 1994 and fund-raising for the project starling four years later. It wasn't until 2000 that Congress, through the Underground Railroad Freedom Center Act, established the center as a national interpretive site. The five-story Freedom Center took two years to design, with the construction team, headed by a Black architect, breaking ground in 2002.

"I'm excited," Freedom Center CEO Spencer Crew says. "I think that we all had expectations to create something special, but I'm not sure that we realized how special it was going to be now that it has come to fruition. It's just marvelous. What is best about it is the kind of response we have gotten from a wide variety of people. Everyone can come here and find something to connect with that has meaning for them, and that's what the dream has been all along. It is important to us that a personal connection arises as part of the experience."

The concept for the Freedom Center was first proposed by Robert Harrod, the executive director of the local chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now called the National Conference for Community and Justice) as a way the group could thank the community and celebrate its 50th anniversary. He initially thought it would be a small, perhaps traveling, museum. But with the help of the federal government and thousands of donors, including African-American-owned enterprises like the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, Leo Burner USA, and Johnson Publishing Company, as well as Fortune 500 companies like Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble (which donated $6 million), Ford Motor Company, Toyota Motor and Delta Airlines, the idea grew.

Today, in the midst of a city that has had more than its share of racial strife--particularly between African-Americans and the local police department--the Freedom Center is one of the most ambitious museum projects ever. City leaders hope the museum will be a constant reminder of how far race relations have come in the city, and how much more work needs to be done.

The Freedom Center is organized into three connected pavilions that represent the themes in the center's mission--courage, cooperation, and perseverance. The pavilions contain space for exhibits, theaters, educational facilities, a research institute, a cafe and a gift shop. The pavilions also pay tribute to the three constitutional amendments--the 13th, which abolished slavery, the 14th, which provides equal protection regardless of race, and the 15th, which provides the right to vote regardless of race--that brought an end to slavery and upheld the equality regardless of race.

The center has a dual role: to recognize the heroes and courageous stories behind the Underground Railroad and the abolition of slavery in the United States--a story that historians say has been largely untold, and much that is told is not accurate--and also to shed light on the continuing struggle to free some 27 million people currently enslaved around the world. It's an emotional experience designed to make people think about what freedom means to their lives. The exhibits are bluntly honest, no dodging or sugarcoating of the facts. But at the same time the tone avoids being accusatory.

"It makes something move inside you," says the Rev. Fred Shuttles-worth, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Cincinnati native.

Under the guidance of leading historians, curators, artists and exhibit designers throughout the United States, five major exhibits have been developed. The ESCAPE! Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad exhibit is designed to tell the story of the Underground Railroad in terms appropriate for grade-school students. The interactive film, Brothers of the Borderland, which Oprah Winfrey narrates, focuses on the Underground Railroad heroes. The exhibit From Slavery to Freedom provides historical context to understand how slavery could coexist in the land of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps the most interactive exhibit is The Hall of Everyday Freedom Heroes, which is designed to showcase key individuals throughout history who have helped shape the world's landscape of freedom.

The Freedom Center's largest and most powerful artifact is an 1830s slave pen recovered from a Northern Kentucky farm and reconstructed log-by-log in Center's second-floor atrium. Hidden inside a tobacco barn for more than a century, the 20-by-30-foot former jail, which held slaves until they were sold as property, is a stark remnant of America's internal slave trade, and considered hallowed ground by many who visit.

Oprah Winfrey, who donated $1 million to the center and narrated one of the films for the museum exhibit, spoke of the importance of the Freedom Center when she recently attended a $1,000-a-plate dinner during the center's grand opening ceremonies. "I truly believe," she says, "that you have to know where you came from before you can know where you are going. Without the efforts of the courageous individuals who sought freedom along the Underground Railroad, we wouldn't enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that we do today."

Muhammad Ali and first lady Laura Bush were present during the groundbreaking for the center, and Mrs. Bush returned to speak during the grand opening. President Bush and presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) have also visited the center.

Author and activist Nikki Giovanni has worked with the Freedom Center during the development process. The Cincinnati native believes in the importance of understanding the history of race relations in America, particularly understanding the tremendous challenges overcome to make the Underground Railroad successful.

Former Procter & Gamble CEO John Pepper was one of the central people responsible for turning the Freedom Center idea into reality. In fact, he thought that spreading the virtues of freedom and better race relations were so important that he gave countless hours, and $3 million of his own money, to help the cause. "It's an issue that had plagued us, and plagued humankind," he says. "And that is letting differences, whether it's race or ethnicity, separate us. I think the Freedom Center is going to tell history in a way that we can reflect on it, and hopefully consider how we might interact with each other differently ... and support one another in the pursuit of freedom."

An eternal flame will burn at the center to symbolize the candies in the windows of the secret supporters that guided runaway slaves along the Underground Railroad. Famed architect Walter Blackburn, founder of Indianapolis-based Blackburn Architects, designed the building, 32 percent of which was contracted out to minority-owned firms. When he died in 2000, his wife, Alpha Blackburn, picked up the Freedom Center challenge.