Freedom Center Open for Free Today

Thanks to generous underwriting from PNC, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (NURFC) is able to offer free admission to visitors on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 16, 2012. In its ongoing commitment to the spirit of inclusion, PNC continues to fund this free day, providing access to members of the community otherwise not able to visit. The center is located in downtown Cincinnati next to the Great American Ball Park.

The Warren County History Center is closed today as are most museums, but you can visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and learn a great deal about southwest Ohio's role in the abolition of slavery. 

There isn't a lot of material culture - that's museum speak for "things" to put on display in this museum. There's the slave pen and a few shackles, but mostly you will read and view and learn about the risks our ancestor's took to help right a terrible wrong.

One of the information exhibits

For "edutainment" there is an exciting "chase" movie introduced by Oprah Winfrey and several short videos of slave re-enactor's telling their stories.

The picture above shows a time line wall with three different historical time lines to ponder. The top line is about the abolitionists and the abolitionist movement. The middle line tells the story of slavery in this country and the last line tells individual slave's stories.  It's a lot to read and take in, but between the movie, the videos and the timeline you should come away with a good basic understanding of the events that brought us to war in 1861.