Spencer Crew

CEO, Underground Railroad Freedom Center

A highly-respected historian of the African-American experience, Dr. Spencer R. Crew's innovative museum exhibits have brought new life to American history. He is perhaps best known for his study of the Great Migration the massive movement of Southern African-Americans to Northern cities in the early twentieth century. Crew was both the first African-American director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH) and the youngest. In 2001 he became executive director and CEO of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.