Underground Railroad Free Press

News and views on the Underground Railroad • Vol. XVIIII, no. 110, November 2024

Published bimonthly since 2006, we bring together organizations and people interested in the historical and the contemporary Underground Railroad. Free Press is the home of Lynx, the central registry of contemporary Underground Railroad organizations, and the Free Press prizes awarded annually for leadership, preservation and advancement of knowledge, the community's highest honors. Underground Railroad Free Press is emailed free of charge around the 15th of odd-numbered months. Reach us at http://urrfreepress.com/contact.html.

In This Issue

• High honor for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

• High honor for Harriet Tubman

• An Underground Railroad safehouse is saved

• A unique Frederick Douglass biography

Freedom Center Voted #2 History Museum in the Country

Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center has once again been named by USA Today's 10 Best Readers' Choice Awards as one of the top museums in the United States. This is the fourth year in a row that the Freedom Center has received the honor. Following is the Center's press release upon winning the award, which has been lightly for space.

The Freedom Center’s relocated Kentucky barn that had been used as slave quarters

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center faced off against 20 other museums across the country for the title of Best History Museum in the country. Over a four-week nationwide vote, the nationally-accredited museum garnered the second-most votes in USA TODAY’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice awards. This was the fourth consecutive year the Freedom Center has finished in the top three. It took home first place last year.

This year, Cincinnati is home to not one but two of the nation’s top history museums as the Cincinnati History Museum finished third in voting.

The full list of USA TODAY 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards can be viewed at https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/travel/best-history-museum-2024/.

“After being voted among the top three history museums in the nation for the fourth year in a row, it’s obvious that these stories matter,” said Woodrow Keown, Jr., president and COO of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. “This is a testament to the relevance of these stories as we continue the freedom journey started by our ancestors and is a celebration of our community which supports us. To everyone who voted, everyone who has visited and everyone who has supported us in so many ways, you have our continued gratitude.”

Since its opening in 2004, the Freedom Center has shared stories of freedom’s heroes from the era of the Underground Railroad to today. It is symbolically located on the banks of the Ohio River, where many enslaved people took their first steps on free soil after self-liberating through the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. The Freedom Center honors that legacy through immersive, thought-provoking exhibits, programming and films to be a convener of dialogue around issues of freedom, the denial of freedom, systemic racism, implicit bias and modern-day enslavement. During a visit, guests are introduced to freedom conductors including Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, John Rankin, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Box Brown, Margaret Garner and the millions whose names have long been forgotten.

The Freedom Center is developing a new exhibit that will ensure its content remains relevant and continues to share stories that will inform the current and changing dynamics of the ongoing social justice movement. To ensure its galleries and its stories are accessible to the entire community, the Freedom Center partnered with the Fifth Third Bank Foundation to start Fifth Third Community Days, providing free admission on the fifth and third Sunday each month, plus MLK Day and Juneteenth, through 2026.

“This honor brings national recognition not only to our organization, but to our mission and our city. It further establishes Cincinnati as a tourist destination and a city dedicated to the inclusive freedom our mission embodies,” added Keown. “We hope this award will encourage more people from across the country to experience all our museum and our city have to offer.”

Since its opening in August of 2004, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, more than 1.3 million people have visited its permanent and changing exhibits and public programs, inspiring everyone to take courageous steps for freedom. Two million people have used the Center's online educational resources working to connect the lessons of the Underground Railroad to inform and inspire today’s global and local fight for freedom. Partnerships include Historians Against Slavery, Polaris Project, Free the Slaves, US Department of State, and International Justice Mission. In 2014, the Center launched endslaverynow.org, an online resource in the fight against modern slavery. ​ 

Brigadier General Tubman

The following article is adapted from an Associated Press release.

Revered abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who was the first woman to oversee an American military action during a time of war, was posthumously awarded the rank of general on Monday.

Dozens gathered on Veterans Day at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park in Maryland’s Dorchester County for a formal ceremony making Tubman a one-star brigadier general in the state’s National Guard.

Gov. Wes Moore called the occasion not just a great day for Tubman’s home state but for all of the U.S.

Said Moore, “Today, we celebrate a soldier and a person who earned the title of veteran. Today we celebrate one of the greatest authors of the American story.”

Harriet Tubman statue in the Maryland Statehouse. Underground Railroad Free Press participated in the dedication of the statue.

Tubman escaped slavery herself in 1849 and settled in Philadelphia. Intent on helping others achieve freedom, she established the Underground Railroad network and led other enslaved Black women and men to freedom. She then channeled those experiences as a scout, spy and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, helping guide 150 Black soldiers on a gunboat raid in South Carolina.

Nobody would have judged Tubman had she chosen to remain in Philadelphia and coordinate abolitionist efforts from there, Moore said.

“She knew that in order to do the work, which meant that she had to go into the lion’s den,” Moore said. “She knew that leadership means you have to be willing to do what you are asking others to do.”

The reading of the official order was followed by a symbolic pinning ceremony with Tubman’s great-great-great grandniece, Tina Wyatt.

Wyatt hailed her aunt’s legacy of tenacity, generosity and faith and agreed Veterans Day applied to her as much as any other servicemember.

“Aunt Harriet was one of those veterans informally. She gave up any rights that she had obtained for herself to be able to fight for others,” Wyatt said. “She is a selfless person.”

Tubman’s status as an icon of history has only been further elevated within the last few years. The city of Philadelphia chose a Black artist to make a 14-foot bronze statue to go on display next year. In 2022, a Chicago elementary school was renamed for Tubman, replacing the previous namesake, who had racist views. However, plans to put Tubman on the $20 bill have continued to stall.

Free Press note: The United States Department of the Treasury says that the project to put Tubman on the $20 bill is still in the works but awaits a more secure means of printing all denominations to make them harder to counterfeit.

Perseverance Pays Off

Following a four-year campaign led by Village Preservation, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on October 21 finally voted to landmark 50 West 13th Street, the endangered 1846 house in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood that Free Press has been reporting on since 2022. In its designation, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission dubbed the building “The Jacob Day Residence,” recognizing the nearly forgotten Black civil rights pioneer who owned the house and lived here from 1858 to 1884, which Village Preservation’s research originally brought to the Commission’s attention and was the basis of the campaign for landmark designation.

“We are thrilled that after a four-year effort, this endangered and fragile historic site, so rich in Black history, women’s suffrage history, and theater history, is finally landmarked,” said Andrew Berman, Executive Director of Village Preservation. “Watching conditions at the building deteriorate for years, and the owner purposely strip historic 19th-century architectural features while the city refused to act, have been painful. We’re hopeful that landmark designation will stem the tide of deterioration at the building, and 50 West 13th Street will ultimately be restored to the condition it deserves. The house’s designation provides long-overdue recognition to Jacob Day’s inspiring work in the 19th century to abolish slavery and achieve equality for Black New Yorkers, Sarah Smith Garnet’s work in the 19th century to fight racism and advance women’s suffrage, and to 13th Street Repertory owner Edith O’Hara’s work in the 20th century to provide a platform for creative expression that eschewed the mainstream and transformed theater,” Berman added. 

For Free Press's earlier reporting on Jacob Day House, see our issues of November 2022 and May and July of 2024 at http://urrfreepress.com/archives.html. 

This Frederick Douglass Biography Is Like No Other

Author Jack Hanrahan's latest book, Traveling Freedom’s Road: Frederick Douglass in Maryland,  is getting dazzling reviews. Says Dorothy Willsey, President of the  National Abolition Hall of Fame, " Reading about Douglass is a moving experience. Reading Douglass's own words is an inspiring experience. Reading his words in the context of his places is a superlative experience! Hanrahan facilitates this experience by assisting with travel details that would otherwise take time away from knowing Douglass better.”

Frederick Douglass in Maryland helps readers to know this heroic figure better as both travel essay and anthology. The book offers a nicely curated, two-day, self-directed tour of Douglass historical sites on Maryland's Eastern Shore and in Baltimore. At over four dozen recommended stops, Douglass’s connections to each location are explained. Interspersed though the book are selected from Douglass writings and speeches. Hanrahan explains that the "Douglass Speaks segments connect to each location and help the reader know this immensely consequential American better."

Hanrahan's first book, Traveling Freedom’s Road: A Guide to Exploring Our Civil Rights History, was selected as the best non-fiction travel book in the 2022 Best Indie Book Awards competition. In 2023,the book was named the best book in the African American History/Culture category by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.