Freedom's Frontier has roots in Missouri, Kansas border area

It's a huge project with national impact and Bushwhacker Museum Di-rector Terry Ramsey is in the thick of it. Ramsey is on the steering committee for the proposed Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area. According to the Web site for the FFNHA history, culture and landscape within the Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area combine to tell the stories that contribute to our national and individual freedoms.

"This is a process where we had to create a bill, it had to go through Congress and it had to be signed by the president," Ramsey said. "This was a long, drawn-out process. We started this as a group of partners, just a group of grassroots partners almost nine years ago. We had to prove that we have a nationally important story that can be told here, and that can't be told anywhere else in the United States."

FFNHA joins 36 other heritage areas recognized by Congress in which conservation, interpretation and other activities are managed by partnerships among federal, state, and local governments and the private sector.

By organizing various governmental agencies, non-profit groups and private partners the program can help recognize, preserve and commemorate the area's unique history, which played an important part in shaping our developing country into the world's leader it is today. Recognition brings affiliation with the National Park Service, which will provide resources for the area.

"When you think of all the different definitions of freedom and all the things that happened right here in this 41-county area with slavery being a major issue. Of course, there's the freedom to continue to move west; and when you think of freedom, it's not just freedom to do something it's also freedom from something," Ramsey said.

"There's two sides to that. When I give you the freedom to do something it might be taking a freedom away from me. That becomes a very complex story. Because of what happened here, because of the abolition of slavery that really came to the forefront right here on our border with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the whole Bleeding Kansas era, we also have to look at the American Indians' story. Not just the ones that were here, but the ones who got moved to here and then moved again -- that story.

"There are a lot of stories and it covers a long period. From the time of the American Indians living here clear up to the time of the Brown vs. the Board of Education, which happened right in the middle of Freedom's Frontier."

The area will feature the places and events that focused the nation's attention on the area prior to the Civil War as well as subsequent events.

Ramsey described the FFNHA as resembling a huge museum.

"It's like a museum that covers the whole area," Ramsey said. "Each location will be an exhibit, an exhibit that the people in can present in their own way, they can tell the story of what happened there from their perspective."

One benefit Nevada will see from involvement in the program are the expanded visibility of the area for tourists from around the country interested in the role this area played in expanding civil rights to all citizens.

Ramsey said at least two tour groups are coming to the area that might not have otherwise done so.

"We've got these two groups coming and that will help get recognition for Nevada," Ramsey said. "They aren't going to anywhere else in Missouri, just Nevada and I think that's a result of our participation in the project."