Mattox Leads Tour of Historic Attractions
By JENNIFER COMPSTON-STROUGH City EditorNearly 40 Chicago-area high school students benefited from the "authentic historical experience" offered by several Upper Ohio Valley destinations on Friday.
Jason Robinson of PUSH-Excel worked with John Mattox, curator of the Underground Railroad Museum in Flushing, to organize the tour. PUSH-Excel is short for "Push for Excellence," an initiative of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH coalition that aims to help young people refocus their values and find the moral leadership and discipline many are seeking.
Robinson said the Underground Railroad Museum was the main attraction that led the group to stop in the area following a tour of historically black colleges and universities in the South along the East Coast. Robinson said 24 girls and 13 boys enrolled in public and private high schools traveled from Chicago by bus to visit the colleges, which he called "unsung heroes" of the African-American community. The goal of the trip through South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland and other states was to expose the students to higher education opportunities in hopes that they will reach for and obtain lifelong academic excellence.
Robinson chose to bring the tour to the Ohio Valley so the students could see the artifacts at the Underground Railroad Museum and visit some of the places where important steps toward ending slavery were taken.
"You can read about it in your textbooks, but to actually see the artifacts and places in living color makes it more powerful and moving, etching it in their hearts forever ...," Robinson said. "We are trying to create an authentic historical experience for them."
At the Underground RailRoad Museum, 206 High St., Flushing, Mattox led students on a tour of exhibits, highlighting everything from John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry (in what was then Virginia) to African-American dolls and jewelry worn by "church women of color." The museum, which opened in 1993, features collections of books and other publications and memorabilia and promotes understanding of the American culture in the 1800s.
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