Join The Gist of Freedom as we welcome Kimberly Simmons- Descendant of The Militant Abolitionist Lewis Leary, (John Brown Raider and The "John Price Rescue"). Kimberly will share stories of her family legacy in social activism, The Underground Railroad, which include two John Brown Heroes, Lewis Leary and John Copeland; Hiram Revels, (first African American United States Senator, filled the seat left vacant by the Confederacy President Jefferson Davis) and two American Revolutionary Soldiers. Oberlin, Ohio a free border state Oberlin was a magnet for Kentucky Bounty Hunters, who ranged across Ohio in search of successful black escapees. As word of a kidnapping spread, a crowd of outraged Oberliners gathered in the town square. At least a hundred of them—both white and black—soon started off on the ten-mile trip to Wellington, traveling on horseback, in wagons, and on foot. The crowd of students, teachers, ministers, and townsfolk rushed headlong toward Wellington without coordination and without pausing to create any sort of organization. After only a few minutes, the abolitionists burst through the door and knocked several of the slavehunters to the ground. Although some of the rescuers were armed, not a shot was fired. Instead, they lifted John Price onto their shoulders and carried him downstairs and into the public square. Cheering in victory, the rescuers hurriedly threw Price into the back of a waiting wagon— Price was back in Oberlin. The freed slave was hidden for a few days in the home of a senior professor, and then he was taken surreptitiously to Canada. Kimberly Simmons~ "As a member of the Langston / Quarles family, these stories, ("John Browns Raid with Five Black Vigilantes) are not lost to us.
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