Beth Messner and a collaboration of nine students with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Dream Team (MLK Dream Team) to create a public history exhibit that focused on the Underground Railroad in Indiana.
The exhibit created by the students contained four units that focus on: 1) the history of slavery in the United States, 2) the Underground Railroad, with an emphasis on its presence in Indiana, 3) the continued struggle for freedom from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights movement, 4) implications of Black racism in contemporary United States.
As students worked toward their goal, their efforts were facilitated by conversations with members of the MLK Dream Team and other interested individuals in our community, field trips to sites of public history (i.e., National Underground Railroad Museum Freedom Center, Levi & Catharine Coffin Interpretative Center, Indiana Historical Society), extensive research and reading, interviews with descendants who were fugitives and agents of the Underground Railroad, and workshop experiences. Through these experiences, students work shopped exhibit objectives and ideas, developed the themes and stories that grounded their exhibit, designed exhibit graphics, built exhibit structures, developed video and other exhibit assets, and successfully showcased their work in conjunction with their colleagues in the two other Spring 2023 VBC seminars (led by Andre Garner and Dr. Jayne Biekle).
Watch a short behind the scenes video about the Journey to Freedom seminar.