NATCHEZ — A pioneering Forks of the Road exhibit hit the highway this month and made its first stop on a nationwide tour at Purdue University.

Friends of the Forks of the Road Coordinator Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley said he created the exhibit with the goal of taking the story of the Forks of the Road out into the world. It debuted at the Purdue Black Cultural Center March 21.

Boxley said the exhibit goes beyond the normal history of enslaved persons with information that sets precedents for research.

“It is my best work in my time in Natchez, other than initially resurrecting the Forks of the Road history,” Boxley said.

A grant from the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program under the National Park Service funded the exhibit. Boxley said it is both a reading and visual exhibit that is made up of 11 six-by-eight foot panels that give information, charts and pictures on different aspects of the Forks of the Road.

The most innovative panel, Boxley said, gives people the opportunity to view actual copies of bills of sale from the Forks of the Road. The panel is complemented by a distribution chart that shows buyers, sellers, slaves sold and the slaves’ destinations.

Other panels show slave trading routes to the deep South, as well as an update of the research of the four enslavement sale sites.

One panel illustrates the efforts to convert slaves to Christianity and how slaves survived the rules and laws of slavery.

Boxley said the exhibit’s sources include slave narratives and slave owner diaries, including the diary of Louisiana slave owner Bennett Barrow.

Purdue Black Cultural Center Director Renee Thomas said the exhibit fits well with the center’s mission to acquaint people with the historical and significant contributions of African-Americans to American history.

“The Forks of the Roads (exhibit) greatly assists us in fulfilling our organization’s mission,” Thomas said in an e-mail. “Unfortunately the story of African-American’s significant contributions as enslaved labor is often overlooked or untold.”

Thomas said the exhibit tells part of the powerful history of African-Americans in the United States.

“The exhibit panels are not just part of black history, it is American history,” she said.

Boxley gave several speeches and presentations at Purdue and local schools during the exhibit’s debut. He said the incredible reception the exhibit and his presentations received should show Natchezians the value of the work being done at the Forks of the Road.

“It was so gratifying that I was able to understand and see why I did all this,” Boxley said. “I could see the benefit off all the years of work, just having such a receptive audience at a major, multi-cultural university listening to the struggles of African-Americans and the struggle I have been through to get equal history in Mississippi.”

Boxley said the exhibit will remain on display at the Purdue Black Cultural Center until June 1, possibly longer.

A portion of the exhibit, Boxley said, may travel to St. Augustine, Fla., for the NPS National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program’s annual conference June 20-24.

Boxley said the exhibit will remain on the road for as long as institutions book it for display. He said he believes Rust College in Holly Springs may be the next stop for the exhibit after Purdue and the conference.