Community Conversations: Locked Up for Justice at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center on August 17
MEDIA CONTACT:
Will Jones
(513) 333-7558
(513) 288-4834
wjones@nurfc.org
Jamie Glavic
(513) 333-7511
(513) 802-7355
jglavic@nurfc.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CINCINNATI, OH (August 3, 2017) – The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is hosting Community Conversations: Locked Up for Justice on Thursday, August 17, at 6:30 p.m. The conversation features biology and chemistry professor David Fankhauser discussing the risks and sacrifices in confronting injustice as a young Freedom Rider. This program is free and open to the public. RSVPs are requested.
Raised as a Quaker, Fankhauser engaged in planning meetings with civil rights leaders Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama. While attending Central State University (CSU) in the early 1960’s, which had a 99.4 percent black student population at that time, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) called upon CSU in search of student volunteers to be part of the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Rides were a series of bus trips that were taken through the southern United States to protest racial segregation in the interstate bus terminals. At 19 years-old Fankhauser and other Freedom Riders rode a trail way bus from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi. Upon arrival, Fankhauser and seven other Freedom Riders were arrested for refusing to leave the waiting room of a whites-only bus station. In 2014 Fankhauser was inducted in the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame for his contribution to the Civil Rights Movement as well as involvement with the Freedom Riders.
“We are honored to have David Fankhauser share his personal experience of being a part of the Civil Rights Movement – first hand, with our guests,” says Christopher Miller, Manager of Program Initiatives of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. “As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once stated that an injustice to one race is an injustice to all races, and Dr. Fankhauser exemplifies this as he made an insurmountable contribution to the Civil Right movement.”
Community Conversations: Locked Up for Justice is Thursday, August 17 at 6:30 p.m. The program is open and free to the public. RSVPs are requested. For more information about upcoming programs and exhibits at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, visit freedomcenter.org.
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ABOUT THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in August 2004 on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Since then, 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 utilized educational resources online at freedomcenter.org, 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 National Underground Railroad Freedom Center launched a new online resource in the fight against modern slavery, endslaverynow.org.