September 12 event scheduled for Lancaster Marriott
(Lancaster, PA — June 19, 2026) Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and political commentator Eugene Robinson will be the keynote speaker on Saturday, September 12, at The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania’s “Quest for Freedom” fundraising gala.
The longtime Washington Post columnist authored his fourth book in 2026, Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America. It chronicles his family’s well-documented past to demonstrate how African American history is an essential strand of the larger American narrative—from his great-great-grandfather’s liberation from slavery through his own coming of age during the Civil Rights movement.
The longtime Washington Post columnist authored his fourth book in 2026, Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America. It chronicles his family’s well-documented past to demonstrate how African American history is an essential strand of the larger American narrative—from his great-great-grandfather’s liberation from slavery through his own coming of age during the Civil Rights movement.
The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is slated to open in 2029–30 in the historic Susquehanna River town of Columbia, which was a critical stop for Freedom Seekers fleeing the slaveholding states for more than 50 years.
The museum gala will be held at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square, with WGAL news anchor Michael Fuller serving as master of ceremonies and Zena Howard of the architectural firm of Perkins&Will joining Robinson as a featured speaker. Perkins&Will is currently working on the Motown Museum in Detroit and the Bezos Learning Center at Washington’s National Air and Space Museum. Members of the design team for the National Museum of African American History and Culture created the initial concepts for the 10,000 sq. ft. Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
“The conspiracy of good engineered by Pennsylvania’s Underground Railroad leaders—including William Still, Martin Delany, Stephen Smith and William Whipper—helped write one of the most inspiring and compelling chapters in American history,” says Robinson, whose own family story stretches back two centuries to an enslaved boy named Harry. “Preserving these achievements in a museum environment not only cements their legacies, it celebrates the mark left by thousands of Pennsylvanians whose response to slavery was This stops here.”
“Pennsylvania’s sprawling, complex Underground Railroad story is, at its core, a human story—made up of countless thousands of individual acts of conviction and courage that helped to define our national character,” says Dr. Leroy Hopkins, board president of The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
“I cannot imagine anyone better than Eugene Robinson to lend perspective to that story at our first major public event.”
The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania will be located on the 300 block of Locust Street in Columbia, combining adaptive reuse of a former Woolworth’s and Masons Hall, as well as new construction on the adjacent property. The project’s supporting partners include the National Park Service, LancasterHistory, Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African American Historical Society of South Central Pennsylvania, and the Susquehanna National Heritage Area.
Tickets and sponsorship opportunities for the September 12 event are available on the UGRRMuseumPA.org website under the “Quest for Freedom Fundraising Gala” tab.
For more information on the gala, email events@ugrrmuseumpa.org For more information on the museum, email info@ugrrmuseumpa.org