Documentarians get nearly $20K to tell the 1858 John Price rescue story

OBERLIN — A documentary on a pivotal moment in Lorain County history is in the works. Scott Spears and Christina Paolucci of Production Partners Media have been awarded a $19,800 grant by the Ohio Humanities to recount the 1858 Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. "Outside of Northeast Ohio, not a lot of people know it, and I think it's an important story," said Spears. "It's about stepping up and confronting injustice on a very small scale that has an impact on a very large scale." John Price was a slave who escaped to freedom and found refuge in Oberlin. Slave-catchers led by a U.S. marshal kidnapped him under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and fled to Wellington to await a train. They hoped to return Price to his former owner in Kentucky, but on Sept. 13, 1858, residents of Oberlin marched south to free him by force. Spears has been making documentaries since high school and has worked on independent films in Los Angeles. His wife, Tracey Warren, died due to a heart defect in 2008. Her family, which hails from Oberlin, told the story of Price's rescue often, and he's wanted to tell it in documentary form for quite some time. The Oberlin Heritage Center is helping him reach that goal by providing fact-checking and research. "We're not filmmakers, I will readily admit that," OHC Director Liz Schultz said. Tales of abolition and the Underground Railroad are often told from the perspective of white participants. Schultz said "making John Price's story a little more front and center" is an appealing part of the new documentary effort. The film will also provide a commentary on modern race relations, she said. "I think relooking at this would help people understand some of the things they're still seeing today are still carryovers from the era of slavery," she said. Spears agreed, saying he wants people to relate the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue to the Black Lives Matter movement. Both are examples of people rising up to confront injustices, he said. "They saw an injustice, where an enslaved person escaped and was trying to start a new life, and the slavemasters were trying to take him back," he said. "They could have stood by, but instead they did something." While the Ohio Humanities grant has helped propel the project forward, it is moving at a crawl due to the pandemic, Spears said. Most filming and interviews just are not possible right now. He hopes to complete the film in late 2021 or the spring of 2022, and is working with the Heritage Center and Oberlin College to hold a local screening. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.