Emma Johnson, Executive & News Director<\/p>\n
June 17, 2026<\/p>\n
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative (AFHTI) will be hosting a dedication ceremony on Friday, June 19, 2026. This ceremony is to recognize the newly designated Asbury Parker Escape Site in Huntington, West Virginia, as part of the National Park Service\u2019s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.
\nThe ceremony is set to begin at 11:00 a.m. at Harris Riverfront Park and will coincide with Juneteenth.
\nThe Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative is a multi-state initiative led by the Lawrence Economic Development Corporation. The LEDC is documenting and interpreting verified Underground Railroad sites across Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
\nThe marker and ceremony will honor Asbury Parker, a freedom seeker who was born into slavery in Cabell County and later escaped bondage in eastern Kentucky in 1857. Parker was assisted by a network of Black and white conductors across the Ohio River Valley, and ultimately reached freedom in Canada.
\nCicero Fain III, Assistant Director of Research and Outreach for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative said the AFHTI and the National Park Service set a goal of documenting and nominating twenty-seven Underground Railroad sites in the Tri-State area.
\n\u201cThe National Park Service\u2019s approval of the Asbury Parker site marks a major milestone in that effort. This designation brings the total number of AFHTI-recognized sites to twenty-seven, including the first three Network to Freedom sites ever documented in Cabell County,\u201d Fain III said. \u201cParker\u2019s story reminds us that the struggle for freedom was deeply rooted in Appalachian communities and deserves to be remembered and shared.\u201d
\nDrew Feight, Ph.D., Director of Research and Outreach for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative said Parker’s story is among the \u201cmost remarkable\u201d freedom-seeking journeys in this region.
\n\u201cHis life reminds us that the Underground Railroad was driven first and foremost by the courage and determination of freedom seekers themselves,\u201d Feight said. \u201cParker risked everything to claim his freedom, and in doing so left behind a powerful testimony that helps us better understand both Appalachian history and the broader struggle against slavery.\u201d
\nThe National Park Service\u2019s Network to Freedom program, created by Congress in 1998, highlights more than 800 places and programs.
\nThe Network verifies that each one is a true story about the men, women and children who freed themselves or were helped by others to escape enslavement. The Network to Freedom program has listings in 41 states, Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada.
\nThe dedication ceremony is free and open to the public and will begin at 11am at Harris Riverfront Park.
\nFor more information on the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative, visit www.appalachianfreedom.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emma Johnson, Executive & News Director June 17, 2026 HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative (AFHTI) will be hosting a dedication ceremony on Friday, June 19, 2026. This ceremony is to recognize the newly designated Asbury Parker Escape Site in Huntington, West Virginia, as part of the National Park Service\u2019s Underground<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1052,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-wmul-news"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4907,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4906\/revisions\/4907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}