Freedom Center announces new curator

A curator with a deep interest in regional history has joined Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Ashley Jordan, of Mansfield, is a Howard Univeristy Ph.D. candidate studying the migration of African-Americans to Ohio. For the last two years, she was also the curator of the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce.

Jordan has also worked with the National Museum of American History’s African American Community Life Division; Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial; Mary McLeod Bethune Council House; the National Park Foundation and Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit.

Jordan is expected to graduate from Howard Univeristy in the spring of 2017. Her doctorate research looks at the "push-pull factors" that caused many African-Americans to flee North from the time of the Underground Railroad to the First Great Migration, according to the announcement.

Jordan graduated with a bachelor's degree from Kent State University in history with a minor in political science in 2008.

“Ms. Jordan’s arrival to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center marks another exciting moment in our second decade of operation,” said Michael Battle, executive vice president and provost of the center, in the release. “Her experience and background, coupled with her passion and dedication to education and the preservation of history, will surely strengthen our institution’s reputation as a museum of history and of conscience. It’s an honor to welcome her to the Freedom Center family.”

Jordan will be a part of the museum experiences department.

For more information about the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, visit freedomcenter.org.