CLEVELAND — A history teacher at Oberlin High School, who was named National Teacher of the Year and Ohio Teacher of the Year in 2022, said teaching Black History Month to his students is essential to the classes he teaches on African American history and race and gender oppression.

What You Need To Know

  • Kurt Russell has been coming to the Oberlin Heritage Center since he was a child

  • The history here is essential to the courses Russell teaches on African American history and race and gender oppression

  • The city is also famous for one of the key events thathelped spark the civil war, the Oberlin-Wellington rescue

Kurt Russell has been coming to the Oberlin Heritage Center since he was a child. 

“Maybe third grade, yeah third grade,” he said.

He teaches in a city that’s significant to Black history. Oberlin was well-known as a center for abolitionist activities and an important stop along the Underground Railroad.

“The one thing about Black history is it’s the opportunity to really elevate and to celebrate the accomplishment of Black culture, not only for Black students or Black faculty and staff but also for all students,” he said.

Executive director of the center, Liz Schultz, has also been teaching students about that history.

“You would look through here and the two images and the glasses kind of combine them to make a three-dimensional image as you’re looking through it,” she said.

Oberlin is famous for one of the key events that sparked the Civil War, the Oberlin-Wellington rescue.

“Even though Ohio did not allow slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law was a national law that meant slave capturers could legally operate in Ohio,” she said.

Escaped slave, John Price, was living in Oberlin for two years when he was captured in Oberlin and transported to Wellington. Hundreds of rescuers from Oberlin marched there to free him and then helped him flee to Canada. The center has a photo of some of those rescuers.

Oberlin’s significance to Black history continues into the 1930s with the building of a little red schoolhouse in 1936, integrating both Black and white students to learn together.

“Even though that was against Ohio law, at that time there was a series of laws called the Black Laws that would discourage African Americans to live in Ohio, but Oberlin and several other comminutes just ignored that law and taught students together,” she said.

For Russell, now teaching in that same school district, his message is simple.

“Black History Month to me really resonates on the idea of being inclusive, that it’s a time it’s a period for all of us to come together to celebrate,” he said. “As I said earlier, not only the accomplishment of Black people in this country, but the accomplishments of America, because Black history is American history.”