The Price of Freedom: How One Town Stood Up to Slavery by Judith Bloom Fradin (review)

The Fradins celebrate an episode of collective action in which the citizens of Oberlin, Ohio put their lives on the line in 1858 to save a slave sheltering within their community. The story begins with the flight of John Price and two companions, who run away from their masters in Kentucky and find refuge with Quakers in Ohio. Price eventually decides to linger through the winter in Oberlin, until he could make his way into Canada after the ice on Lake Erie thawed. The pace and tension augment when a slavecatcher nabs Price and an Oberlin College student who witnesses Price’s plight musters the community. A large posse of citizens travel to the neighboring town where Price is being held and, despite their pacifist leanings, come ready to fight to bring Price back home to Oberlin. Velasquez’s paintings have the cinematic flair of frontier adventures—not the B-Western variety, but the provocative showdowns in which the righteous suspend a deeply held conviction for a greater good. A family is bribed with a gold coin to betray Price; the Oberlin student walks straight-faced past the kidnapped slave, cannily disguising his own outrage; and pistol-toting Oberlinians creep up the hotel stairs to ambush Price’s captors. Information about the fate of the rescuers, all of whom served jail time for breaking the law, takes pride of place at the episode’s conclusion, right under a full-spread photograph of the heroes—notably black and white, young and old. Lists of adult and children’s print resources and a selection of websites are included.