Unfortunately, my group did not get a chance to meet with a Freedom Center representative when the community partners were in class so we were unable to get a first impression. Instead, we met with Ron, someone from UC, who knew a little about the center but not enough to get our project started. On Monday, February 25 we went to the Freedom Center to visit with our project representative, but yet again he did not show up.I did, however, enjoy the tour we took that day.
I learned many new things about the Freedom center, Cincinnati, the Underground Railroad, and slavery in general. I had been there once before, but this visit opened my eyes to things I had not realized before. I enjoyed the video about Ripley, Ohio and how John Rankin and former slave John Parker helped slaves to freedom from Kentucky to Ohio. I also liked the artwork in the building, the actual slave pen and the Slavery to Freedom exhibit. At the end of the tour, we realized our Freedom Center representative wasn’t going to show, so we had to come up with our own ideas for the project. We used our experience on the tour and the inspirations we received to discuss possible themes. We decided to incorporate a timeline of slavery in our Second Life project. We wanted to also use the Freedom Center logo somewhere as well and create the slave pen we saw. Although there has been little guidance thus far, I think we have some good ideas to begin with.
The exhibits we saw included:
An Actual Slave Pen
From Slavery to Freedom
2 Videos about the Underground Railroad
Slavery Timeline Exhibit
and more..
