The Price of Freedom

How One Town Stood Up
To Slavery

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Walker Books for Young Readers (Bloomsbury)

(pub. 1.8.2013) 48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin

     and Illustrator: Eric Velasquez

C haracter: People in Oberlin, Ohio, on the Underground Railroad

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "John Price escaped from slavery on a wintry night in January 1856, willing to risk everything for a chance at freedom. He was lucky enough to find a new life in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, then home to many abolitionists and former slaves. But when slave hunters snatched him right off the road two years later, it seemed like that new life was over. Still, John risked everything one more time, yelling for help as a student from the local college passed the wagon.
        John thought his plea went unheard, but the college student sounded the alarm. The people of Oberlin - men and women, black and white - found the slave hunters in Wellington, Ohio, and demanded that Price be set free. When those demands were ignored, they - along with some Wellington residents - took matters into their own hands, risking their own lives and freedom in one of the most dramatic slave rescues in American history."

        

T antalizing taste: 

"Within minutes, hundreds of Oberlinians set out for Wellington. Farmers, shopkeepers, and ministers hurried off to rescue John Price. So did Oberlin College professors and students. Young and old, men and women, fathers and sons, black and white, armed and unarmed - people jammed the roads in carts and buggies, on foot, and on horseback."

                       

and something more:  The back matter of The Price of Freedom explains: "To this day Oberlinians are proud that their forebears followed the 'higher law' in slavery days. The Underground Railroad Sculpture stands on the college campus. Oberlin College student Cameron Armstrong created it in 1977 as part of an art-class project. The sculpture honors the role of the college and town in helping John Price and thousands of others escape slavery." The class of 1977 donated  funds to Oberlin College to preserve it as a permanent sculpture. A wonderful tribute to a courageous and commendable group of people!