educational programs. His autobiography, a slave narrative, was published in 1996 as HIS PROMISED LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN P. PARKER, FORMER SLAVE AND CONDUCTOR ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. In the 1880s, Parker gave interviews to the journalist Frank Moody Gregg of the Chattanooga News, who had been researching the resistance movement. He never published his manuscript, and the historian Stuart Seely Sprague found Gregg's manuscript and notes in Duke University archives. He edited the memoir for publication, to keep Parker's language, and added a detailed biography in the preface. The John P. Parker House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 by the U.S. Department of the Interior. John P. Parker School, in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a pre-kindergarten through 6th grade school named after him. Rise for Freedom: The John P. Parker Story, opera by Adolphus Hailstork. In popular culture In her children's book, Trouble Don't Last (2003), Shelly Pearsall based her character of "The River Man" on Parker, as a tribute to his success in helping escaped slaves cross the Ohio River and onwards towards freedom. In Sharon Dennis Wyeth's Freedom's Wings, a book in the My America series, John Parker helps the main character cross the Ohio River. References Further reading Blacks in Science and Education, edited by Vivian O. Sammons (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishers), 1989. p. 184 John P. Parker, HIS PROMISED LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN P. PARKER, FORMER SLAVE AND CONDUCTOR ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, Edited by Stuart Seely Sprague, New York: Norton, 1996 Louis Weeks, "John P. Parker: Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur, 1827-1900", Ohio History 80(2) (Spring 1971): 155–162. Freedom River, Doreen Rappaport, NY: Hyperion Books for Children, 2000 External links "John P. Parker", African American Registry "John Parker Papers", Duke University "John P. Parker Museum and Historical Society", Official Website "John P. Parker School", Website John Parker, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center 1827 births 1900 deaths African-American businesspeople 19th-century American businesspeople African-American inventors 19th-century American inventors African-American abolitionists Underground Railroad people 19th-century American slaves Moldmakers People from Ripley, Ohio People who wrote slave narratives Activists from Ohio People from Norfolk, Virginia