September 1, 2000
RELEASE ON RECEIPT

ABOLITION AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Exhibition, Living History Showcase and Lectures by James Oliver Horton

OBERLIN, OHIO--Just as the 1858 Oberlin Wellington Rescue--which gave rise to Oberlin's reputation as "the town that started the Civil War"--was a joint venture on the part of townspeople, faculty and students, so, too, is a multi-faceted program focusing on the abolition of slavery presented this month by five community groups.

The co-sponsors of the collaborative project are the Oberlin Historical Improvement Organization (O.H.I.O.), the Zion Community Development Corporation, the Friends of the Oberlin College Library, Oberlin College History Department and African American Studies Department.

The program of free, public events includes the national traveling exhibition "Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America" on view throughout the month at the Oberlin College Library’'s Mudd Center and a living history open house at the Oberlin Heritage Center September 24, with costumed first-person volunteers showcasing the story of the historic rescue.

On September 28 and 29, highly acclaimed African-American scholar James Oliver Horton will present several talks at sites on and off campus addressing the exhibition theme. Professor Horton is the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University and director of the Afro-American Communities Project of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

The exhibition traces the debate over slavery in the U.S. from the framing of the Constitution until its abolition during the Civil War. Professor Horton co-curated the exhibition with David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History at Yale, for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Comprising the exhibition are 22 free-standing panels, a video, and interpretative and educational materials. They include personal letters, documents, cartoons, photographs and broadsides from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, many on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan library and previously unavailable to the public nationally, such as an early fragment of the "House Divided" speech by Abraham Lincoln.

A strong believer in taking academic knowledge to the public, Professor Horton appears on the History Channel's weekly program "The History Center," and has served as advisor to numerous museums in the U.S. and abroad, and as a consultant for film and video production on ABC, PBS, and the Discovery Channel.

He has written several books, including Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community (1993), The History of the African American People (1995--co-edited with Lois E. Horton), In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Protest and Community Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (1996), with sociologist Lois E. Horton as co-author. Their work was praised by other historians and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Among his numerous published articles is "Black Education at Oberlin College: A Controversial Commitment" in the Journal of Negro Education (1985).

Living History Open House: The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue
(Lawn games, Ice Cream Social)
Sunday, September 24, 2 to 5 p.m.
O.H.I.O.’s Oberlin Heritage Center, 73 S. Professor St.

Gallery Talk: "Struggling Against the Slave Power"
Thursday, September 28, 4 p.m.
Oberlin College Library]
Main Level, Mudd Center, 148 W. College St.

Lecture: "The Abolitionist Underground and the War on Slavery"
Thursday, September 28, 7 p.m.
New Union Center for the Arts, 39 S. Main St.
Oberlin College
followed by a reception hosted by
the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts (FAVA)
and the MAD* Factory

Lecture: "Presenting Slavery: The Perils of Telling America’s Racial Story"
Friday, September 29
12 Noon
Room 101, Wilder Hall, 135 W. College St.
Oberlin College

Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli 9/1/00 #15 bg