Onondaga Hill Middle School students set their textbooks aside on a recent morning, and learned in a slightly more interactive way about an important piece of local history: the Jerry Rescue.
In two separate assemblies, fifth- and sixth-graders and seventh- and eighth-graders took on roles as runaway slaves, abolitionists, African American citizens, a federal marshal and former Syracuse Mayor C.F. Williston.
Syracuse was the site of the 1851 Jerry Rescue, in which a group of local abolitionists and citizens defied the Fugitive Slave Act and rescued the escaped slave — William Henry, also known as “Jerry” — by taking him free from federal authorities. The event rippled across the continent. Southern newspapers condemned it. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass praised it and several of the participants fled to Canada, including “Jerry” who died in Kingston, Ont., just two years later at the age of 41.
Each February at Onondaga Hill Middle School, in the Westhill school district, students join more than 1 million readers nationwide in the African American Read-In Chain during Black History Month. And each year, a different guest is invited to lead students in a performance that highlights African American culture.
On Feb. 6, students read poems, speeches and excerpts from a variety of African American writers and activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali and Countee Cullen. A group of five girls, all in seventh grade, recited the Charles R. Smith Jr. poem, “I Am America.” And the school’s select chorus, The Harmonizers, composed of 36 seventh- and eighth-graders, sang “Lean on Me,” under the direction of music teacher Kathy Tompkins.
The Read-In, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, is in its 23rd year nationally. This was Onondaga Hill Middle School’s 11th annual African American Read-In. In all, about 130 seventh- and eighth-graders participated, said Grace Zabel, a seventh-grade English teacher who coordinated the school’s Read-In.
Later that day, local storyteller and performance artist Vanessa Johnson led a Jerry Rescue re-enactment during a schoolwide assembly. Every student in fifth- through eighth-grades played a part in what Zabel described as an “interactive, lively re-enactment of the 1851 rescue of runaway slave, Jerry, by abolitionists in Syracuse.”
Johnson provided speeches and lines for students to read based on actual testimonies from those involved in the event. She gave students cards that either read, “anti-slavery” or “pro-slavery.” They were then instructed to jeer or cheer as their peers acted out scenes in the school gymnasium.
“It made the whole thing more lively,” Zabel said.
Eighth-grader Andrew Nicolais wore handcuffs as he played the role of Jerry, Zabel said.
“It really made the history come alive,” Zabel said.
Johnson used articles from “The Syracuse Standard” newspaper, published Sept. 24, 1850. And eighth graders studied the Jerry Rescue in social studies class.
“This made it so much more personal,” Zabel said, “and it made it come alive for them.”
Catie O’Toole can be reached at email@example.com or 470-2134.