Elusive Utopia: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Oberlin, Ohio

Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World

by Gary Kornblith, Carol Lasser, Richard J. M. Blackett (Series Editor)

Because it embraced radical racial egalitarianism in 1835, Oberlin, Ohio, stood in the vanguard of the quest for abolition and black freedom in the antebellum period. Today, residents, visitors, and scholars still celebrate its historic role in abolition, integration, and the quest for equality. Yet after the Civil War, Oberlin's resolute stand for racial justice gave way; black activists became disillusioned as they fought in vain against the imposition of a color line, while white leaders made excuses for their acceptance of segregation and race-based inequality. Elusive Utopia, by noted historians and longtime Oberlin College faculty members Gary Kornblith and Carol Lasser, tells the story of how, over most of its first century, the people of Oberlin, black and white, understood and acted upon their changing understandings of race such that their town came to experience a color line by the early decades of the twentieth century.

Genres: History

344 pages, Hardcover

First published December 5, 2018

Reviews

[Adina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This melancholy exploration of one town's descent from a utopian commitment to racial equality to a quotidian acceptance of spreading social segregation and prevailing prejudices raises relevant questions about the relationship between economic opportunity, political passions (and fads), gendered spaces for activism, and the porous border between striving to improve an imperfect world and taking existing circumstances as inevitable. It also prodded me to think more critically about power, shifting cultural norms and the role of counter-cultures, economic "rationality" and the difference between willful ignorance and well-meaning assumptions. All while virtually walking the streets of a community that has remained beloved to me since my college days more than a decade ago. Thank you, Gary and Carol.

[Dan Moulton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book, but, I wanted a little more on why the Oberlin commitment to racial equality broke down.

[Ava Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

dense but informative book that taught me a lot about my alma mater