Oberlin, Ohio: Hotbed of Abolitionism

The city of Oberlin, Ohio has a long historical legacy as a pillar of the black freedom struggle. Founded in 1833 by two Presbyterian ministers, John Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart, Oberlin was named after Jean-​Frédéric Oberlin (1740 – 1826), a Lutheran clergyman and philanthropist from the remote town of Alsace, France.

Shipherd and Stewart were inspired to cultivate this new community of social action and higher learning after reading the biography of J.F. Oberlin in 1830. From its earliest years the city was a center of academics, social activism, and racial justice. During the mid-​19th century, Oberlin became a node on the Underground Railroad, with many blacks being directed to this safe harbor of freedom.

In his book, Oberlin: Hotbed of Abolitionism, author J. Brent Morris recounts how the “perfectionist Christianity of the town’s founders inspired the nation’s first multiracial, co-​educational college, and sustained an unusually integrated community.” That is a reference to the founding, on September 2, 1833, of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. Oberlin College’s abolitionist roots were tied to two men in particular, William Dawes and John Keep, who toured England in 1839 and 1840 gathering funds for Oberlin and the abolitionist cause.

In 1835, Oberlin College (as it later became known) admitted two black students, the brothers Gideon Quarles and Charles Henry Langston, the first predominantly white institution of higher education in America to do so. Two years later, it began accepting women, becoming the first college in the nation to become coeducational.

And Oberlin College quickly established its abolitionist bona fides. Morris notes, “If you made it to Oberlin, you made it to freedom. You didn’t have to hide; you were accepted. But people were encouraged to go on to Canada because Ohio had an active Fugitive Slave Law. In essence, if you found a slave, you were expected to return the individual because they were technically stolen property. If you didn’t, you could be fined or imprisoned.” ¹

Supported by a state law that permitted fugitive slaves to apply for a writ of habeas corpus, escaped blacks in Ohio were afforded protection from extradition back to the South and back to slavery. This refuge, however, was eroded in 1858 when the newly elected Ohio legislature repealed the edict and exposed black fugitives in Oberlin to enforcement of the national Fugitive State Law, creating a fertile environment for southern slave catchers.

The escalating tension between freedom fighters and those intent on maintaining slavery led to a flashpoint in Oberlin known as the Oberlin-​Wellington Rescue. Nat Brandt outlined this landmark event in his book, The Town That Started the Civil War. On September 13, 1858, federally authorized slave catchers kidnapped a fugitive named John Price in nearby Wellington, Ohio. After the abduction occurred, a group of black and white Oberlin residents marched silently to Wellington to attempt to free Price. Nearly 600 citizens surrounded the hotel where he was being held, rescued Price via one of the windows, and ensured his safe passage back first to Oberlin and ultimately to Canada.

The Oberlin group’s emancipatory act attracted the ire of federal authorities. President James Buchanan sought prosecution of Price’s defenders, who were affectionately known as “The Rescuers.” Thirty-​seven members of this group, including pathbreaking student Charles H. Langston and twelve other free blacks, were indicted for their role in Price’s escape as a violation of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The U.S. District Court in Cleveland arraigned them where they pleaded not guilty.

As a part of an agreement reached with the feds, all but a couple of those who led the Oberlin-​Wellington Rescue were released. But Langston was tried and convicted, though not before he delivered such a compelling speech denouncing slavery that the judge passed down a lighter sentence.²

In the aftermath of these events, major protests erupted throughout Northern Ohio, providing a boost to the anti-​slavery Republican Party in Ohio’s 1860 elections. During this period, Ohio’s governor reached out to the incoming U.S. Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, in the hopes that he would repeal the Fugitive Slave Act. Lincoln declined, worried about heightening sectional tensions; regardless, America was soon enveloped in a Civil War.

In 1888, John Mercer Langston, an Oberlin graduate and the younger brother of Charles Langston, became the first Black elected official to the U.S. Congress from Virginia. By 1900, Oberlin College had delivered one-​third of all undergraduate degrees received by black professionals in the U.S., many of whom would go on to be deeply involved in both the struggles against slavery and, later, segregation. Indeed, Charles Langston’s grandson was the famous poet of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes.

Over the next century, Oberlin College continued its strong advocacy efforts around social and racial justice. In the 1960s, it hosted a campus chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and played a major role in the sit-​ins and boycotts of segregated businesses in Cleveland. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the many civil rights leaders who were invited to speak at the college and awarded honorary degrees. Oberlin remains a testament to the bravery of ordinary citizens willing to defy unjust governments when they violate fundamental civil liberties.