John Brown in the News

A NOVEL ABOUT JOHN BROWN COMES TO TELEVISION

Ethan Hawke is to star in Good Lord Bird, an eight-part, limited series based on the novel by James McBride.

Ethan Hawke will Play the Old Man
in a Showtime series

"Good Lord Bird is one of my favorite books, told with wit, grace and wisdom by the great James McBride," Hawke said in a statement Monday. "Bringing this story to the screen has been a passion project of mine, and I am incredibly fortunate to have partners who are equally enthusiastic and are making it a reality — my wife and producing partner Ryan Hawke, and my longtime friends at Blumhouse."

Hawke will play 19th-century abolitionist John Brown in the drama. He also is co-writing and executive producing the project, while Anthony Hemingway (True Blood, Shameless) is set to direct and executive produce.

"This is just the right time for The Good Lord Bird," McBride said. "I wrote it to show we Americans are family — dysfunctional, screwy, funny, even dangerous to one another at times, but still family nonetheless. Old John Brown always had a knack for landing into the right place at the right time. I'm delighted he's landed in the lap of one of America's most gifted and literate actors."

Hawke, 48, is a four-time Academy Award-nominated actor, who has also penned several novels. His screen credits include Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, Gattaca, Training Day, Boyhood and First Reformed.

Source: Karen Butler, "Ethan Hawke to Star in Showtime's Adaptation of James McBride's 'The Good Lord Bird.'"  TV Insider, Mar. 12, 2019.  Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/2UAIIe1


BIOGRAPHER DAVID REYNOLDS AT DETROIT EVENT

University of Detroit Mercy School of Law recently hosted “Detroit’s Abolitionist Moment: 160 Years of Fighting for Justice,” a symposium celebrating the historic March 12, 1859 meeting of famous abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown at the home of William Webb in Detroit. The event was scheduled for Tuesday, March 12 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Detroit Public Library’s Clara Stanton Jones Friends Auditorium at 5201 Woodward Avenue in Detroit. The event was open to the public.

The symposium, which is made possible with the support of the Dewitt C. Holbrook Memorial Trust, honors the 160-year anniversary of the historic Douglass and Brown meeting by exploring the context in terms of antislavery, black activism and the Underground Railroad in Detroit; the setting of the meeting at William Webb’s house; the series of events that brought John Brown to Detroit; and the intellectual anti-slavery approaches of Douglass and Brown.

David Reynolds, Biographer

John Brown traveled to Detroit with eleven former enslaved people that were seeking freedom in Canada. The audience will learn about the experience of freedom seekers who crossed the border into Canada. Descendants of the 1859 meeting participants, including a descendant of a former enslaved person who traveled to Detroit with John Brown, are among the presenters.

The symposium features a keynote address by David S. Reynolds, distinguished professor of English and U. S. History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Reynolds is the author of “John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights.”

Source: "Historic Detroit Meeting to be the subject of symposium." Forever Titans (Detroit Mercy), Feb. 18, 2019. (https://bit.ly/2TNoMrc)

Listen to David's interview with Stephen Henderson on Detroit Today (WDET) (https://bit.ly/2FaOP3p)