Side Note: She Got Him Right--Prof. Stephanie Coontz's Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times (Aug. 14, 2022) features an op-ed by Prof. Stephanie Coontz entitled, "Op-Ed: American History is a Parade of Horrors — and Also Heroes."

Coontz, who is professor emerita of history at Evergreen State College in Washington, makes this sound and robust assessment of Brown.

And then, of course, there was John Brown, the devout Reformed Evangelical whose militia battled slavery proponents in the Kansas territory and who led an attack on a federal armory in Virginia in 1859 in an attempt to arm slaves for an uprising. He was tried for insurrection and hanged. Yet his stand against slavery inspired later Union troops to march into battle singing “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on.”

Of course, I take issue with the familiar but flawed claim that Brown raided the armory "to arm slaves," something contradicted by the evidence, including Brown's words and tactics while at Harper's Ferry. Still, I greatly appreciate Coontz identifying Brown as a "Reformed Evangelical," which is precise and all too rare when he is described, particularly as a radical religious reformer.--LD