Freedom Museum

Back in the beginning of the semester, I was privileged to take a trip to Cincinnati with several other seminary students and staff to visit the Freedom Museum, specifically presenting a history of the Underground Railroad.

A view of the Ohio river from inside the museum.

The entire experience was overwhelming and encouraging at the same time. Experiencing the horrors and injustice of slavery as well as the bravery and grace of the fight against it alongside a community of brothers and sisters, all of whom are being broken over the current state of human trafficking in our world, was truly transformational.

This is the opening painting and exhibit within the museum.

One of the most gripping experiences for me personally was the realization that the largest slave castle from which men, women and children were loaded onto ships was the very one that I visited in 2006 when I was in Ghana. The name of the castle is Elmina and is pictured below from a few photographs I took when I was there. Remembering the weight of my heart when I prayed over the remains of that castle in Ghana and the injustices carried out there while I was standing inside the Freedom museum in Cincinnati was a horrific convergence of two very real worlds and two very real experiences. Each experience truly elevating the reality of the other.





Furthermore, there was a special exhibit on display when we were at the museum chronicling the history of lynching within the United States. Now remember, this covered the history of lynching throughout the whole of the United States, not only the lynching of slaves in the South. In response to that exhibit, I recorded the following thoughts in my journal that evening:

In reading the captions and seeing all of the pictures of victims who had been lynched around America, I was reminded of how often the persons being lynched had been accused of certain crimes or injustices. I found myself quick to have sympathy for them and the injustice that was being done to them to kill them in such a tortuous manner. However, I also found myself wondering how many of them, regardless of race or location, were actually guilty of the crime they had been accused of. At that moment, I was shocked at the reality that I was even thinking about this. For if I knew that they were actually guilty, I would have in some way felt a lesser degree of sympathy for them? Why did I feel like that? I’m not sure. The reality remained that they had been inhumanely tortured and killed. Should their degree or state of innocence or guilt effect the degree of compassion I feel for them? Should I fight against the injustice done on someone or on a group of people differently if I consider how guilty or even how worthy they are? Christ surely did not allow the guilt of my sin stop His outpouring of love and compassion to save me. I began thinking through all of these emotions and thoughts and was essentially reminded that there is no room for me to attempt to judge someone’s innocence or degree of worthiness when fighting against the injustice being done to them. If they are worthy of Christ’s blood, they are more than worthy of my compassion, prayers, energy and love. Even though it can be easy to be broken over the injustice of a helpless child caught in sex trafficking, I should just as quickly be broken over the injustice of a _________ (fill in the blank) being the subject of another form of human trafficking.

Here are a few pictures I took at the exhibit. (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you can't read the writing.)

The next to last cause is "Insult to White Persons"

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ~ Edmund Burke

May the redemption that came through the hands and hearts of those who fought against the injustices of our past encourage us and move us to move against the injustices in our world today. There are more humans enslaved in the world today than at any other time in human history. May we have grace to know, grace to be appalled, and grace to do something from a place of love.