It's been 30 years since the concept of a museum telling the story of the Underground Railroad and the fight for freedom finally came to fruition. In May of 1995, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center officially incorporated, and nine years later, the museum opened its doors to visitors along the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati.
The Freedom Center is marking its 30th anniversary this weekend with a private event Friday night for founding members and longtime donors, then a public Community Unity Day is set for Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This will include free admission, musical performances, and early access to two new exhibits.
WVXU spoke with National Underground Railroad Freedom Center President and COO Woodrow "Woody" Keown, who reflected on the first 30 years, and is looking forward to the next 30. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
On how he would characterize the last 30 years
"Successful, impactful, and inspirational, in that the vision that was started by the people who founded the Freedom Center, and the purpose for which it was founded. You'd have to describe it as being successful in that we're still here. I think the mission, in terms of trying to bring unity to the community, bring people together, and deal with some significant social issues that we have in our community, I think that we've made a lot of progress, but there's still a lot of work to be done. Overall, we're on a great path. I think that we're working hard to do a better job of connecting the past with the present, and I think that's the key to our success going forward."
On what he views as the most prominent highlights of the last 30 years
"One of the significant things that we've done, in terms of connecting past with present, is getting into the human trafficking area — to bring this to light as a form of modern day enslavement. This has been helpful in helping people to understand and make the connection between past enslavement and modern day enslavement. There's still a lot of work to be done in this particular area, but when we opened our new exhibit about 10 to 12 years or so ago, called 'Invisible,' and started down this process of talking about human trafficking, I think that was a very impactful and significant strategic change in terms of broadening and helping us to carry out our mission in a more contemporary way."
On goals for the next 30 years
"The goal for the next 30 years is we want to continue our mission around bringing about equity and inclusion and belonging to the community. We want to be a leading institution with regards to education of people in this area of inclusion and equity and justice, and we want to continue to expand our influence on a national basis while taking care of our primary market area here, which is about a two-hour driving radius of Cincinnati.
"We want to activate more young social activists. We want to try to include the younger generation more. We want to be a force in terms of being a destination to get the story, to educate people around what we do, how we do it, and attract more people to come to Cincinnati to see and learn more about our story and the significance of our location here as a borderland on the Ohio River and what it meant to the country's freedom, [and] to Ohio from a legacy standpoint. And just be a positive force in terms of bringing people together, educating them, [and] inspiring positive social change to make the world a better place."
On what visitors can expect at Sunday's Community Unity Day
"They're going to experience a better understanding of what it took to bring the Freedom Center to life, and the multi-ethnic, multi-racial network of people that were working together and collaborating to make it happen. It was really a special group of people that brought this [together] and have been able to maintain this going forward.
"We hope to inspire people to understand how they can work together in their networks, in their communities and organizations and institutions, to figure out how they can go and learn from someone who might be different, so that they can make the world better.
"They'll also experience the first new [permanent] exhibition here at the Freedom Center in more than 10 years. It's a starting point in terms of orienting people around why we're here, the significance of this location. They'll see a lot more multimedia experiences — which we hope to continue with our project to remake the Freedom Center — and importantly, a special call to action when they come in. Before they even start the journey in the main exhibit area, they'll know what they should be thinking about and what they should expect to learn as a result of their visit at the Freedom Center.
"Hopefully [they'll] leave with at least one thing that they can go and do better in terms of bringing our community together and making our community and the world a better place."
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