Fradin, Judith Bloom.
THE PRICE OF FREEDOM : HOW ONE TOWN STOOD UP TO SLAVERY
New York : Walker Books for Young Readers, 2013
IL 3-6, RL 5.7
ISBN 0802721664

The town of Oberlin, Ohio was one of the busiest stops on the Underground Railroad.  It is believed that the town sheltered three thousand runaways between the 1830s-1850s.  In 1856 two runaway slaves, John and Frank, decided to live there permanently, rather than continue on to Canada.  Oberlin’s escaped slaves lived under the shadow of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a law which allowed escaped slaves to be captured and returned to their owners, even if they were on free soil. When slave catchers kidnapped John in September of 1858 the townspeople mobilized to save him. Hundreds of Oberlin’s cititzens went to the nearby town of Wellington to free John.  Townspeople in Wellington joined the folks from Oberlin and demanded that John be freed.  A group of daring men decided to raid the hotel where John was being held and free him.  After a brief fistfight, John was freed and eventually disappeared.  The rescue became known as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue.  Thirty-seven of the rescuers were prosecuted under the fugitive slave act and served three months in prison.  When they returned home to Oberlin they were considered heroes.  Would you have had the courage to do stand up for what you believed in?  (Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award, 2015)