Day 4: Thursday August 6

Oberlin
http://www.Oberlin.edu/~EOG/

This monument was designed by Cameron Armstrong, Oberlin College, 1977, as a symbol of Oberlin's participation in the Underground Railroad.

Oberlin College was very much the center of abolitionism in Ohio, if not the United States. Indeed, the 1990 book by Nat Brandt calls the town of Oberlin "The Town that Started the Civil War." Founded in 1833 as a 'moral and religious' Congregational town, by 1836 the first integrated school in the state was in operation. Oberlin College was founded by disgruntled students from Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati who were outspoken abolitionists. Supported by the industrialist Tappan brothers, Oberlin College was founded as Oberlin Theological Institute and later became a college. With a population of just over two thousand (which included several hundred African Americans) by 1860, Oberlin had influence far beyond its numbers. Two Oberliners died in the ill-fated Harper's Ferry raid organized by John Brown.

In 1983, the women of the Oberlin Senior Center stitched this quilt to honor Oberlin's part in the history of the Underground Railroad.

Oberlin trained a whole number of teachers and missionaries who carried abolitionist sentiment around the country. Missionaries from Oberlin would continue their educational work in the Southern states during Reconstruction, and carried their message of education, freedom, and involved Christianity all over the world. A monument on the campus memorializes the Oberliners who died in the so-called "Boxer Rebellion" in China.

Oberlin was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. Escaping slaves hid out in a number of homes in the town, and generally went from Oberlin thirteen miles north to Lake Erie, and then on to Canada and freedom.

"Oberlin is perhaps the most important station along the whole line of the Underground Railway. It has rendered the most important services to Freedom. It is second only to Canada as an asylum for the hunted fugitive."
The Oberlin Evangelist, January 30, 1856

"Oberlin is a town that I felt very comfortable in. I liked the idea of liberal thought and academic achievement combined with a long history of respect for one another in the community."

Karen Love and Michele Osinski listen to the docent tell us about Oberlin's first school.

"What pride the Oberlinians must have in maintaining a community where blacks and whites could work together to achieve a quality of life found in few places in the world. How can others learn from this? Is it possible?"

"Thelma Smith's tour of Oberlin was wonderful! She is a living example of the spirit of Oberlin and its commitment to a cause. What an amazing thing to have a city as integrated as they were so long ago. Would that we could have experienced that spirit. Oberlin just feels different."

"I loved Oberlin. I loved the small college town feeling, and the total dedication and passion that this town has for its abolitionist past, and for preserving that past. In the hours we spent in Oberlin, and in the people we met and learned from...in the end, it's all about educating and transcending ignorance."

Thelma Smith.

"...The peacefulness of the community and the quietness seemed to have voices from the past whispering on the breezes 'all is well' for this was a place where so much was done to help in the struggle of our people."

"I have always been curious about this town and its college; I wondered about a community where women and blacks were admitted to college in the 1830's! This community did not disappoint! Its people were warm, friendly, and welcoming to us. What a rich heritage this place has."

"The Oberlin, Ohio experience was today's most meaningful journey... from the visit to First Church, to the graves of the slaves, abolitionists, and Civil War veterans, to the monument in memory of the 'nameless slave child', to the first Oberlin school house, to the home and garden of James Price, the hero of the Wellington Rescue..."

Westwood Cemetery

This cemetery is the burial place of former slaves, abolitionists, and citizens of Oberlin.

You can see the bullet holes that remain.

"The cemetery was an incredible place. The monument to diversity says it all."

The intensity of the debate between abolitionists and supporters of slavery in the decade before the Civil War followed proponents even to the grave--and beyond. In the Oberlin cemetery, a seven foot cement monument to one Hannah Wack has a number of bullet holes etched into one side. Mrs. Wack was the wife of the man who, as a strong supporter of slavery in Oberlin, informed authorities as to the whereabouts of John Price, who had escaped slavery in Kentucky about three years before coming to Oberlin and living there--certainly with a considerable degree of nervousness about the ever present possibility of being recaptured. It is thought that feelings were so strong in Oberlin after the arrest and recapture of Price that even Mrs. Wack's monument felt the wrath of the debate.

The inscription on his gravestone says:

LET SLAVERY PERISH
LEE HOWARD DOBBINS
a fugitive slave orphan
brought here by an
adopted mother in her
flight to liberty
March 17, 1853
left here wasted wtih
consumption
found a refuge in death
March 26, 1853
Aged 4 years

The story of Lee Howard Dobbins is of special interest. He was a four-year-old slave foster child running from Kentucky with a slave woman named Miriam. Upon reaching Oberlin Lee was too sick to continue the journey so a family agreed to care for him while Miriam and her family continued their flight north. It was too dangerous for them to stay in Oberlin for any length of time. Lee died of consumption on March 26, 1853. Nearly 2,000 citizens of Oberlin turned out for his funeral at First Church. Lee Howard Dobbins is buried in Westwood Cemetery.

"My heart was touched listening to the story of the young Dobbins boy."

"I was so deeply grieved and inspired by the life and death of the four-year-old orphan slave child, Howard Lee Dobbins that I wrote:

'A Short Breath Before Death'
What grief! No father! No mother!
No sister! No brother! No family!
No home! All alone!
Hungry, thirsty, cold, afraid, confused,
bewildered, weary, faint, tired,
Tried and tested beyond life to death.
Poor lonely little one!
What a short breath of desperation was your life!"

-Author: Dr. Duneen DeBruhl

"The agony of a parent to make a decision to save the rest of the family must have been incredible. People have throughout history been forced into such decisions, but that doesn't lessen the impact. The causes that make such decisions necessary - slavery and escape, war, etc. must be eradicated before we as a society are truly free."

Oberlin College Archives

We visited the archives at Oberlin College. Archivist, Roland Baumann, regaled us with stories about Oberlin's Underground Railroad history and shared related artifacts with us.

Jerry Gore videotapes artifacts at the Oberlin College Archives

One such story was that of the Oberlin - Wellington Rescue: Citizens of Oberlin came out in numbers to rescue John Price, an escaped slave, who had lived in Oberlin, more or less openly, for about three, no doubt, worry-filled years, before he was arrested on September 13, 1858 and taken to the nearby town of Wellington to await a train which would carry him back to his former owner in Kentucky. Price was being held in a rooming house by a slave catcher and two United States federal marshals, operating under the authority of the 'fugitive slave' section of the Compromise of 1850, which put more teeth than ever into the legislation that required every public official to act as a slave catcher, if required. The staunch abolitionists of Oberlin found this law unacceptable, and thus, when John Price was enticed out of Oberlin and arrested, the Oberlinians rallied, and 200 to 300 of them set out after Price. The Oberlinians located Price, carried him away from the authorities by threat of force. Price spent the night back in Oberlin, and departed the next day for Canada, never to be heard of again. This event resulted in the indictment, arest, and imprisonment of 20 Oberlin men. They were released after three months in jail when Oberlin brought counter charges against the slavecatcher. Oberlin's defiance of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act became a national issue.

"The Wellington Event would make a great case study for the classroom because it was a very complex event in terms of its social outcomes for the region."

"Experiencing on this journey what our people suffered, hopefully, will be so deep-rooted in our lives (all our lives) that this will never happen again."

Monroe House

The James Monroe House

Before leaving Oberlin, we visited the James Monroe House, belonging to one of Oberlin's many abolitionists. Monroe traveled to Harper's Ferry after John Brown's Raid in an unsuccessful attempt to claim the bodies of the three Oberlin African Americans who were killed there. It is part of a newly created historical park, including Oberlin's first public school built in 1836 where African American and Caucasian children studied together in spite of Ohio's "Black Laws" which forbade this practice.

Little Red Schoolhouse 1836

Eyewitness News

Just before departing for Detroit, members of the group were interviewed about their study tour experience by a Columbus, Ohio television news crew.

"The men, women, and children that made it to freedom could not do it without the close group of conductors along the way. I feel like we are 'conductors'."

Detroit, Michigan
Museum of African American History
http://aristotle.sils.umich.edu/exhibit/maah

Established in 1965 by Dr. Charles H. Wright, a Detroit physician, the museum documents, preserves, and educates the public on the history, life, and culture of African Americans. It also serves as a resource center for the enhancement of knowledge and understanding about African Americans. Of particular interest to the group was a sculpture depicting the Middle Passage which includes many life-like statues of enslaved boys. Young boys from Detroit posed for these magnificent yet emotionally wrenching images.

"The depiction of the crossing brought tears, weakness in the knees, and crawling of the skin."

"...the facial expressions of the children on the slave ship clearly enunciated fear, terror, uncertainty - and the loss of hope."

To learn more about Detroit:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/detroit/dethome.htm