Forest Park residents and visitors across Greater Cincinnati can walk into the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for free this Sunday, October 18, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., as Fifth Third Community Day waives the museum's regular admission fee for a full slate of programming along the Ohio River.
The free admission day, promoted by the City of Forest Park, Ohio on Facebook, normally would have cost visitors $21.50 for adult tickets, with senior and child admission priced at $19.50 and $18.50 respectively, according to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The Fifth Third Foundation and museum's initiative included 16 free admission dates in 2022 — including the third and fifth Sundays of each month, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Juneteenth.
A Banner Workshop Built for the Streets
From noon to 3 p.m., artist Migiwa Orimo leads The People's Banner Workshop, a hands-on session that produces free visual aids — banners, signs, and props — intended for use at protest rallies, picket lines, and other direct-action street demonstrations. Orimo, a five-time recipient of Ohio Arts Council honors based in Yellow Springs, frames the project around what organizers call the concept of Citizen Artists, and her protest banners have appeared in national activist movements and regional art exhibitions, per details shared by The Banks Cincinnati.
Later in the afternoon, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., the museum hosts a staged reading of Welcoming Echoes: John Lewis and His Bridge to Truth, a play tracing the civil rights leader from his youthful days to a gradual justice-awakening. The production comes from local playwright Paul Bergman and director Casey Sunovia Fisher, and the script was previously selected by the Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative for a staged reading series earlier this year, according to Behind the Curtain Cincinnati.
Family Activities Fill the Building All Day
Running alongside the ticketed programming, the Urban League Young Professionals of Greater Southwest Ohio are hosting family activity stations throughout the day, including face painting, games, and a museum-wide scavenger hunt distributed across multiple floors, per the Freedom Center's own event listing. The scavenger hunt and family activities are scheduled to run the full length of the free admission window, giving younger visitors a reason to explore exhibits alongside the adult-focused banner workshop and theater piece.
The museum itself carries significant historical weight for the programming held inside it. The $110 million Freedom Center opened in August 2004 on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, according to Wikipedia. During the antebellum era, thousands of enslaved people crossed the Ohio River into Cincinnati to escape enslavement.
A Museum With Fifth Third Support
The 158,000-square-foot facility has built a national reputation well beyond its origin story. The museum has also served as Ohio's hub for Underground Railroad scholarship, having hosted the state's second annual statewide Underground Railroad Gathering in September 2025, an event to discuss preservation strategies. Hoodline reported that the inaugural 2024 gathering drew more than 130 attendees.
The Fifth Third Foundation's partnership with the museum supports free admission days, letting suburban residents from communities like Forest Park walk through the museum's exhibits without paying the standard ticket price.
