I've told this story on ContrabandCamp but it's worth sharing for BHM because it's one of the greatest stories ever. A thread.

On Sept. 13, 1834 Lane Seminary in Oberlin, OH held an abolitionist debate Students & locals came. ALL the abolitionists showed up. Abolitionst preacher Owen Brown, who built Western Reserve U came. Lane's president, who supported sending freed slaves back to Africa, even brought his young daughter

These debates happened all the time, but this one was different. James Bradley, a formerly enslaved man, debated Lane's president After he spoke for 2 hours, the audience was radicalized The students voted to oppose slavery & help fugitive slaves, so the president banned abolition groups on campus

7 students, the "Lane Rebels," refused to obey the order & resigned. So did James Bradley. The preacher stopped supporting the college HE BUILT bc of segregation, so Oberlin College was like: "Be on our board of trustees." He did, and helped Bradley & the Lane Rebels get admitted to Oberlin

Now some ppl think Bradley was Oberlin's 1st Black student. But Charles & John Langston were already there. They hung out with Lewis Leary, who'd eventually marry Mary, the first Black woman at Oberlin. John Copeland also hung out with them, along with the Lane Rebels & the trustee/preacher's son

(The trustee/preacher's son was a little kid but the Black & white college students eventually graduated, opened a stop on the underground railroad and gradually helped turn the entire town into an abolitionist enclave. Basically, if you were a fugitive slave, Oberlin was the place to hide.

So on Sept. 13, 1858, two slavecatchers heard a runaway named John Price was in Oberlin. They contacted 2 US Marshalls, who got a warrant & said: "Let's go get him." The slave hunters were like: "Are you crazy? You can't just go into Oberlin like that! That town is about that abolitionist LIFE!

The marshals contacted Price & told him to meet them a few miles away in Wellington for a job. They kidnapped him, hid him at a hotel, & waited for the train. When the old Oberlin Crew found out, they sent the trustee's kid home & said: "Let's go stop these MFs" Y'all... THE WHOLE TOWN rode out

They helped Price escape to Canada but the state indicted 37 of the Oberlin Rescuers but the locals were so outraged, they began protesting. Then they locked up the slave catchers for kidnapping. Ppl came from everywhere to protest, so the govt made a deal They convicted 1 white man & 1 Black man

They ran the judge out of politics and kept protesting. It got so intense, after 83 days, the feds realized there was only one way to appease the protesters... They just let Langston & Bushnell go. Just told them to go home.

WHen Charles came home, none of his homeboys were not around. Lewis Leary & John Copeland had never actually been arrested for the rescue, so they were still hiding out in Oberlin. Charles went to Mary Leary's house looking for Lewis. Mary was pregnant and told her old college griend

Mary: Lewis and John went somewhere with some weird-ass white boys. Some underground railroad stuff, I think Charles: "What weird-ass white boys?" Mary: Remember the son of the trustee/preacher who used to hang around all the time? He & some more guys said they were going on some kind of mission.

He would never see his homeboys again. That weird ass-white boy who was the son of the abolitionist trustee? That was John Brown. Lewis Leary was killed in John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. John Brown was convicted of treason for the raid But John Copeland was convicted of MURDER Why?

Well, during the trial, the lawyer argued that, according to the Dred Scott decision, Copeland had "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." And if the Constitution didn't apply to him, how could he commit treason? So they hanged him in a segregated execution ceremony.

Charles Langston's brother recruited 1000s of Black soldiers for the Civil War. He later served as the founding dean of Howard Law School, the first president of Virginia State University, the 4th Black elected official in America & one of the first Black Virginians to serve in Congress.

No one really knows what happned to James Bradley, the man who helped radicalized Oberlin. The Lane Seminary president who lost that debate and the school never got over it. But the Lane debate inspired his daughter to write a series that became a relatively successful book: "Uncle Tom's Cabin

Lewis Leary was killed during John Brown's raid Mary and Charles Langston eventually got married. They named their oldest son Nat Turner Langston & their daughter Caroline They moved to Kansas, educated escaped slaves at a contrabandcamp & eventually opened the first HBCU west of the Mississippi

Charles Langston died in 1892. Caroline got married to a guy who was pretty radical and became a school teacher. WHen she got divorced, she sent her son James to live with his grandmother Mary. And he LOVED hearing all these stories about his grandparents' bad-ass crew.

When Mary's grandson went to Columbia, he wanted to find a crew like his grandma's. But his white classmates weren't as friendly so he dropped out and began writing and working odd jobs. In 1925, he got a job as a personal assistant for a really demanding magazine editor, so James quit his job.

It was probably for the best. James & his boss both had some crazy ideas Mary's grandson told his parents he was studying engineering, but James was actually trying to make a living writing poems using his middle name

James' boss had an even crazier idea He thought the ENTIRE COUNTRY should dedicate an entire week to learning stories like Oberlin Rescue & James Bradley's speech. Carter G. Woodson started Black History Month just after losing his personal assistant, Mary & Charles's grandson... Langston Hughes

Anyway... there might be a reason why one speech reverberated through history. Now, I'm not making this claim myself, and it's difficult to verify. So I'll just quote the man directly: "This is the first instance in the history of the United States that a Black man addressed a white audience."