John Tarleton, "Rethinkin’ Lincoln"

The Indypendent [New York City], October 30, 2009

When Abraham Lincoln accepted the Republican Party nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1858, he warned that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” The future president believed it was impossible for the rapidly growing country to continue half-slave and half-free. Like many moderates of his day, he sought a compromise solution that would contain slavery in the hopes that it would eventually expire.

John Brown shattered this illusion. In October 1859, Brown and a small interracial band of followers seized a government arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Va., in a failed attempt to launch a slave revolt. Brown, with his long, flowing white beard, was sent to the gallows and became an instant martyr for millions. His daring raid managed to radicalize many Northern opponents of slavery while intensifying pro-secession sentiments in the South, just as the 1860 presidential campaign was set to begin.

Lincoln disavowed Brown as a madman while pursuing his successful bid for the White House. However, Brown’s parting words (“The sins of this guilty land can only be purged with blood”) would prove to be a prophetic curse. As the Civil War unfolded, Lincoln would find himself trodding much the same ground that Brown had as he reluctantly moved toward becoming the “Great Emancipator” that history remembers him as.

Now, 150 years after Harper’s Ferry, the distinct but overlapping paths of the two men — one a fiery apostle of direct action, the other a pragmatic reformer — are explored in a pair of exhibits at the New-York Historical Society. Combined, the two exhibits speak to the recurring question of whether social change is brought about by radical organizing from outside existing institutions or by reformers acting from within those same institutions.

CONTRASTING VISIONS

The John Brown exhibit is tucked away in a single upstairs room. The show follows Brown’s increasingly militant response to concessions made to pro-slavery forces during the 1850s. This in turn is a prologue to the audacious plot he hatched on a remote farm five miles outside of Harper’s Ferry. The details of the raid are precisely recounted. Unlike most abolitionists, Brown believed that slaves were ready and able to fight for their freedom and only needed the arms to do so.

Relying heavily on personal correspondence, the exhibit presents the voices of Brown’s family members, fellow conspirators, skeptical allies in the abolitionist movement and the widow of one of his victims. Deeply religious, Brown was a man on fire. Whether he was a heroic freedom fighter or a 19th-century domestic terrorist is left for visitors to discern.

Downstairs, a sprawling Lincoln exhibit uses a vibrant multimedia format. Audio, video, photos, cartoons, paintings, newspaper front pages, personal correspondence, historic artifacts, an interactive game for aspiring war profiteers and more are used to provide a fascinating look at the 16th president and the Civil War. The show grapples with issues familiar to our own age — an unpopular war, economic crisis, incarceration of prisoners by presidential decree and deeply entrenched white racism. By focusing on Lincoln and New York, the great drama of the Civil War era plays out on a human scale.

The John Brown exhibit is tucked away in a single upstairs room. . . . Downstairs, a sprawling Lincoln exhibit uses a vibrant multimedia format.

NEW YORK ON EDGE

Support for Lincoln was thin in New York City, as many business elites wanted to maintain trade ties with Southern cotton growers while working-class whites worried that the abolition of slavery would mean more competition for their jobs. When Lincoln took office, Mayor Fernando Wood went so far as to suggest that New York should secede and become its own independent city-state, which would be free to trade with both the North and South.

These roiling tensions come to life throughout the exhibit, from Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union address which launched his longshot presidential campaign, to torchlight parades by thousands of young, whiterobed Lincoln supporters known as the “Wide Awakes” to the screaming front-page headlines of the city’s unabashedly partisan newspapers.

While the exhibit focuses on Lincoln, it does not exalt the Great Man but shows him as the controversial figure he was at the time. For many of his supporters, like the African-American orator Frederick Douglass and New York Tribune publisher Horace Greeley, Lincoln was far too cautious in eliminating slavery once the war was under way. His detractors, meanwhile, are shown portraying him first as a simple-minded rustic (“The Railsplitter”) and later as a thick-lipped tyrant (“King Abraham Africanus I”) and promoter of interracial marriage, a common slur defenders of slavery used against abolitionists.

At about the midpoint in the exhibit, you can sit in the front pews of a re-created African-American church. It is Jan. 1, 1863, and jubilant voices celebrate the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation while a stirring choral rendition of “John Brown’s Body” is performed. Six months and a couple of rooms further into the exhibit, euphoria turns to horror as simmering race and class tensions explode when poor Irish immigrants unleash their fury on New York’s African-American population.

Blown-up wall panels with street maps of the city provide a detailed log of the four-day orgy of violence. It was the deadliest riot in U.S. history. At least 120 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured prompting Lincoln to send in federal troops to quell the disturbance. Sitting in a small enclosed chamber, one can listen to the re-created voices of victims and eyewitnesses describing what they saw.

Lincoln’s institution of a military draft — a first in U.S. history — was the catalyst for the riots. The war’s carnage was mounting with no end in sight. The rich could buy their way out of military service for $300 (a massive sum for the average workingman), while private contractors made fortunes off supplying the troops with shoddy uniforms, rotten food, defective rifles and so on. Such were the conditions that allowed the anti- Lincoln press to stoke a racially charged backlash of one group of powerless people against another.

EMANCIPATION

The Union Army’s growing shortage of manpower forced Lincoln’s hand on slavery. Citing “military necessity” he issued the Emancipation Proclamation and authorized African-Americans to serve in the U.S. military (but only in segregated units). Almost 200,000 did so by the end of the war.

By freeing the slaves, Lincoln transformed the war into the kind of moral crusade previously espoused by John Brown. A proud Black soldier depicted on the front page of an African-American newspaper highlights a great irony: The same federal government that Brown rebelled against was now arming former slaves to fight for their freedom on a scale that he could have only dreamed of a few years earlier.

The mythology that grew up around Lincoln beginning in his own lifetime is gently deconstructed throughout the exhibit, from Greeley’s branding of “Honest Abe” during the 1860 election campaign to the post-Emancipation Proclamation depiction of Lincoln as the benevolent white father liberating the slaves to Lincoln’s final ascent to secular sainthood following his assassination. Lincoln is presented as an extraordinary figure, but viewers are also invited to ask questions and draw their own conclusions.

The Lincoln exhibit’s greatest shortcoming is its lack of context for understanding the economic vision that guided Lincoln and the Republicans. While the Democrats were the party of the Southern slaveholders, most Republicans were not hardcore abolitionists. They did want to see slavery’s spread halted, but for practical reasons. The expansion of the export-oriented plantation economy of the South was incompatible with the North’s continued development of a modern, entrepreneurial capitalism based on wage labor and satisfying the demand of a growing internal market.

The grand compromise that emerged following the end of Reconstruction in 1876 saw the South economically subordinated to Northern capital but allowed to maintain its “peculiar” racial caste system minus chattel slavery. Lincoln and the Republicans would have happily settled for this in 1860. Almost a century later, the civil rights movement successfully challenged many of the worst abuses of a segregated society. Cloaked in moral fervor but guided by nonviolent principles, it shook the country’s power structure and helped ignite the other great social movements of the 1960s. The tactics were different from those of John Brown — but Brown’s dream of interracial solidarity and political and social equality for all was a vision that America was once again moving toward. And much still remains to be done, regardless of who is in the White House. Even in 2009.

Lincoln and New York and John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy will be on exhibit at the New-York Historical Society through March 25, 2010.

212-873-3400 • nyhistory.org

Answering Rothstein: The Apprehensions of the Ignorant

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to expect even a cultural exhibit about John Brown to evade the sniping of misinformed, biased writers like Edward Rothstein. In his New York Times article, republished in this blog under this same date, Rothstein erroneously refers to "Brown’s vision of a spontaneous slave insurrection," something that John Brown certainly did not envision or plan. Either Rothstein is ignorant of the facts or he thinks like a Southern slave owner. The latter believed that any effort to undermine their so-called Peculiar Institution was "insurrection." In fact, insurrection is precisely what John Brown sought to avoid: insurrection involves the uprising of enslaved people with the intent of exterminating their masters. The ideology behind insurrection is that by killing masters, slaves render themselves free. Taken to extreme, this entails killing the heirs of slave masters, which took place, for instance in the Nat Turner Revolt almost thirty years before the Harper's Ferry raid led by John Brown in the same state of Virginia.

John Brown had no "vision" of insurrection, except as a nightmare. His intention was to arm enslaved people and fight only in self-defense, making every effort to avoid insurrectionary developments and to evade major fighting as much as possible. To be sure, he intended that enslaved people fight in self-defense of their movements if necessary, but nowhere is there any evidence that Brown was an insurrectionist.

The problem is that writers like Rothstein tend to assume they understand Brown, either because they have been miseducated or because they are too fundamentally arrogant to do the research. They simply write what they think constitutes the "problem" of John Brown--an attitude that prevails as much among liberal journalists as among conservatives.

Secondly, the notion that Brown's plans were "fantastical" and that "his strategic abilities" were "sorely strained" at Harper's Ferry is also gross error. First, let Mr. Rothstein be reminded that Brown's plans were hardly beyond reach--both the idea of gathering up enslaved people and withdrawing into the mountains, as well as striking the armory at Harper's Ferry. That his plans failed do not prove them "fantastical," particularly since it is clear that Brown erred in a number of specific judgments--and even the most experienced military commanders may err. Brown's errors were indeed questions of judgment and timing, but the strategy he devised would certainly have enjoyed at least a moderate measure of success had he followed through correctly. Many a battle has been lost due to such misjudgments. Harper's Ferry itself had no military guard and was minimally supervised by civilian workers. It was easy enough to seize the armory at night, and Brown essentially had his way with the town of Harper's Ferry; the problem was leaving before his opponents could muster their own forces. Had Brown, his raiders, and the enslaved men he had gathered departed Harper's Ferry by 6 o'clock the next morning, history might be telling a different story about the raid. That he delayed almost until noon the next day was the fatal flaw, and there is nothing "fantastical" about any of this. Once more, ignorance of the facts on the part of one journalist, conveyed to the public by the most respectable newspaper in the country, marks another setback in educating the public about one of the most important episodes in U.S. history as it regards the struggle for human rights.

But Rothstein's remarks worsen in conclusion. He writes:

But can we not also be distressed by the implications of Brown’s methods, and worry over their enthusiastic embrace over the last 150 years? In his welcome of martyrdom, his visions of apocalyptic retribution and his unshakable belief in his own virtue, Brown is now so familiar a type on the world scene that we cannot resist being horrified by the temptation of terror that he succumbed to, even if, as in this particular case, we welcome its long-sought goal.

It has taken about a century to regain the balance of fairness and thoughtfulness in discussing John Brown, and this journalist decries the "enthusiastic embrace" of Brown's methods? What "enthusiastic embrace"? Certainly not that of the white community! Perhaps Rothstein bemoans the "enthusiastic embrace" of Brown by the black community--you know, the ones whose forebears were enslaved, raped, and terrorized in this country, having been reduced to mere chattel by white society? It is sad that journalist Rothstein is so worried that Brown's efforts on behalf of black liberation are embraced. I wonder if he would be equally saddened had the same John Brown used the same methods as a Nazi killer and liberator of Jews during World War II? There is something wrong with this kind of thinking. That a so-called white man, writing about a white man who used "violence" against an overwhelming racism and institutionalized injustice, should be more worried over the deaths of five racist brutes in Kansas than about the broad scale horrors of black enslavement in the antebellum era suggests that Rothstein presumes the priority of white people, even pro-slavery thugs, over an oppressed people. Again, I wonder whether he would be lamenting Brown's violence if the slain Doyles, those abettors of terrorism in Kansas, had been virulent pro-Nazis engaged in anti-Semitic violence. What's wrong with this picture folks? Why are writers so scandalized by Brown? As the Old Man himself realized, the actions he took, had they been applied to the context of other peoples, would have been roundly praised and awarded. It seems that's a truth that still prevails among white journalists.

Rather than see Brown as a good (yes and also imperfect) man who sought to do something to undermine slavery when the rest of the country was all about compromise and indifference, Rothstein wrongfully sums up the abolitionist as a man of terror, apocalyptic vision, and self-delusion. The man that Rothstein writes about is not known to me; I do not recognize him in the facts of history. I am a biographer of John Brown the abolitionist, certainly one of a small number of scholars who knew more about the man than the rest of the general population. It seems to me that the people who always draw Rothstein's conclusions are not among the number of those who know Brown; they are dealing in caricatures and bogeymen of their own making. It is regretful that the New York Times is not only a newspaper that refuses to publish balanced information about Brown in its Op-Ed section, but also extends erroneous information about the abolitionist at a time when his contributions should finally be appreciated rather than disdained. This is why, among all biographers working in U.S. history, John Brown's biographers must forever be caught up in this tiring, annoying struggle of simply getting a fair hearing for the Old Man in the court of public opinion. White society, especially its academics and journalists, are often far kinder, historically speaking, to men who were far worse in every respect than Brown. This sadly leads us to the conclusion that the reason for this double-standard is fundamentally about race and racism. Brown lived and died in association with and devotion to the human rights struggles of African people in the U.S.A. Many whites simply will never forgive him for holding such an allegiance, first because they do not understand it and second because it vexes and frightens them in some aspect of their thinking. It may be that Mr. Rothstein is so vexed.

Edward Rothstein, "One Man’s Crusade Against Slavery, Seen From Two Angles."

New York Times on-line, Oct. 27, 2009

RICHMOND, Va. — His body may lie a-moldering in the grave, but in what form exactly does his soul go marching on? We may think we know something about John Brown, the abolitionist and stern Calvinist who 150 years ago this month led 21 followers to take over the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va., expecting to gather weapons to fuel a widespread slave rebellion. His self-proclaimed Provisional Army of the United States took hostages (including a great-grandnephew of George Washington) and killed four innocent citizens. Finally, after being captured by a detachment of Marines led by Robert E. Lee, and tried, Brown and six other insurgents were hanged for treason, though their cause ultimately triumphed.

But in two small-scale but heavily laden exhibitions — one at the New-York Historical Society, drawing on the extraordinary Gilder Lehrman Collection, the other at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond (the first show devoted to Brown in a city that was the capital of the Confederacy) — it becomes clear that Brown’s legacy is nearly as riven now as it was on the eve of the Civil War. His actions still raise unresolved issues about the limits of dissent, the nature of terrorism and the effects of revolutionary violence.

The two exhibitions are also subtly different, reflecting in some respects contrasts that have their origins in the controversies of that earlier era. In New York “John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy,” developed by James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, and others, states its goal from the start: to examine “John Brown’s beliefs and actions in the context of growing national divisions over slavery in the 1850s.” We read in the wall text how, in that crucial decade, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act four years later, as well as the Dred Scott decision of 1857, “precipitated a firestorm between slaveholding Southerners and free-labor Northerners.”

Violence even broke out on the Senate floor in May 1856, when Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina assaulted an antislavery colleague, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, beating him so badly that it was three years before Sumner returned to the Senate.

Out of that atmosphere, Brown’s violence also took shape. We see his fierce intelligence in letters to followers, and read reminiscences of his hanging and its aftermath. There are shadows here, but his legacy is given few ambiguities. It is displayed in documents representing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, which ended institutional slavery and its legal culture. Brown’s legacy, the show suggests, finally found fruition in the 1960s civil rights movement (evoked here by a placard carried in a march that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. joined the day he was murdered).

Ultimately, the assessment of Brown that remains is that of Frederick Douglass, who disagreed with Brown’s tactics but is quoted here in 1881: “If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery.”

In Richmond in “The Portent: John Brown’s Raid in American Memory,” something quite different happens. In the South Brown was condemned not only for his abolitionist views but also because he tapped into latent fears of a slave rebellion. Now, of course, the curators, the historians William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton, take the virtues of Brown’s abolitionist cause for granted; indeed, the last part of the exhibition is devoted to a series of 22 schematic, affecting prints of Brown’s life and his martyrdom by the artist Jacob Lawrence (based on his 1941 paintings). Melville’s 1859 poem “The Portent,” about Brown’s hanging, gives the show its title, presciently calling Brown a metaphysical herald, a “meteor of the war” that was about to begin.

But in Richmond abolition is not the theme; Brown’s tactics are. And we can hear the clamor of the debate more clearly. As the show points out, Brown’s virtue was not always so transparent, even in the North.

Brown was hailed by Emerson, who said he would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” Thoreau glorified him as living beyond death. Victor Hugo called him “this liberator, this fighter for Christ,” whose hanging (“so great a crime”) “would impart to the Union a creeping fissure.”

The first biography of Brown, published soon after his hanging, is open here to its title page, where the author, James Redpath, with a typographical shout, dedicated the book to Emerson and Thoreau, “WHO, WHEN THE MOB SHOUTED, ‘MADMAN!’ SAID, ‘SAINT!’ ”

But at the same time Hawthorne called Brown a “blood-stained fanatic.” Lincoln called his raid “absurd” and deplored Brown’s “violence, bloodshed and treason.” In the major Northern cities “Union meetings” were held to condemn Brown.

A petition signed by 3,500 Bostonians proclaimed, “We deeply sympathize with the people of Virginia.” In New York, the exhibition says, there was a huge political meeting: 6,000 people filled the Academy of Music; 15,000 gathered outside; and 20,000 signed a resolution regarding “the recent outrage at Harpers Ferry as a crime.”

There were some, clearly, who opposed Brown because he was both violent and an abolitionist, but others opposed him simply because he was violent. One of the remarkable objects on display here is a long pike topped with the blade of a Bowie knife. In March 1857, in preparation for the raid, Brown ordered a thousand such custom-designed weapons from a Connecticut manufacturer, for use by slaves with no experience with guns. The weapon has a primitive power, and helps give some idea of the kind of battles Brown imagined.

There is a letter in New York, written to Brown before his hanging by Mahala Doyle, the wife and mother of those murdered. “Altho vengeance is not mine, I confess, that I do feel gratified to hear that you ware stopt in your fiendish career,” she writes, pointing out that the Doyles didn’t even own slaves.

“O how it pained my Heart to hear the dying groans of my Husband and children,” she recalls, noting that her youngest son, whom Brown spared in response to her entreaties, wished he could be at the hanging to help adjust the rope around Brown’s neck.

This makes the issues more stark, and in Richmond they become explicit. “Does an individual have the right to carry out violent acts based on conscience?” the exhibition asks in a video surveying the history of the raid. “Does a noble end justify a bloody means?” And given Brown’s unwavering belief in his own righteousness and his embrace of the most extreme methods, the show asks, “Is Brown so different from today’s bombers from Oklahoma City to Iraq?”

The exhibition does not answer those questions; it is effective enough just to raise them. What makes this case so disturbing is that here we have a cause that is now considered inherently virtuous: the abolition of an institution that had led to untold violence and degradation. Moreover, slavery seemed to be so firmly established that nothing but violence could unseat it.

Brown’s vision of a spontaneous slave insurrection might have been fantastical, and his strategic abilities sorely strained, but one judgment (as in New York) is that good grew out of this apparent evil. Like the Union forces in the Civil War, Brown used violence in the service of ending violence.

“I think I did right,” Brown told his captors after the raid, and he considered his effort to be “the greatest service man can render to God.” The New York exhibition has a letter Brown wrote in prison: “I do not feel myself in the least degraded by my imprisonment, my chain, or the near prospect of the Gallows. ... I go joyfully in behalf of Millions that have no rights that this ‘great, & glorious’; ‘this Christian Republic,’ is bound to respect.”

But can we not also be distressed by the implications of Brown’s methods, and worry over their enthusiastic embrace over the last 150 years? In his welcome of martyrdom, his visions of apocalyptic retribution and his unshakable belief in his own virtue, Brown is now so familiar a type on the world scene that we cannot resist being horrified by the temptation of terror that he succumbed to, even if, as in this particular case, we welcome its long-sought goal.

“The Portent: John Brown’s Raid in American Memory” is on view through April 11 at the Virginia Historical Society, 428 North Boulevard, Richmond; (804) 358-4901, vahistorical.org. “John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy” is on view through March 25 at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, at 77th Street; (212) 873-3400, nyhistory.org.

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St. Louis Civil War Roundtable Monthly Meeting features John Brown Portrayal

Famed abolitionist John Brown, as portrayed by Dave Matheny, Emeritus Professor of Rhetoric and Public Address at Emporia State University and veteran Chautauqua participant, will be the dinner speaker at the Civil War Roundtable’s next meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at Two Heart’s Banquet Center, 4532 S. Lindbergh Blvd. Member cost is $17 with dinner, $5 without. Annual CWRT dues are $35, with discounts for multi-member households and students. For more information on future to attend s monthly event as a guest, call Paul Hauser 636-861-0220.

Phone: 636-861-0220

John Brown Symposium in Springfield, Mass. features Biographer David Reynolds

On Oct. 17, 2009 the 150th anniversary of the raid on Harper’s Ferry that ignited the Civil War, the Springfield Technical Community College School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences held a symposium on abolitionist John Brown, who lived for four years in Springfield. Pictured above is David S. Reynolds, author of the best-selling biography John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, with the bust of John Brown. Pictured below is Professor John Gately, also an antiquarian book dealer, speaks about his collection of memorabilia of John Brown and the era just before the Civil War.

Source: BusinessWest Online [Springfield, Mass], Oct. 26, 2009

Brown’s raid events draw large crowds; Officials say nearly 5,000 people came out for 150th anniversary of abolitionist's seige

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and the local community on Oct. 15 recognized the 150th anniversary of Brown's attempt to seize weapons from a local arsenal in an attempt to arm area slaves.

Numerous events took place leading up to the anniversary, and activities continued throughout that weekend.

In all, officials said nearly 5,500 people took part in events at the park that weekend, despite the rainy weather. More than 2,000 travelers stopped by the newly opened Harpers Ferry Visitor Center that weekend, said Paulette Sprinkle, director of the Jefferson County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"That's just what we got in this building," Sprinkle said of the figure.

Sprinkle said the weather may have deterred some of the visitors who were initially expected to turn out for the events.

"The weather was so bad," she said.

Initially, officials with Harpers Ferry National Historical Park expected crowds for the anniversary to be so large that the park's 1,000-car parking lot would not be able to accommodate everyone. Plans were in place to use nearby Bolivar Heights for auxiliary parking if it was needed, she said.

The crowds ended up being smaller than those projections, but considering the weather, Sprinkle said they were still a healthy size.

"That was a very good turnout," she said.

Sprinkle noted that the events surrounding the John Brown sesquicentennial are not over just yet.

In November, events will continue at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. A community forum and walking tour through Charles Town also are planned for that month.

Members of the Jefferson County NAACP are reportedly planning events in December, including a ceremony in which participants will retrace the route from the Charles Town jail to the site where Brown and two of his raiders were hanged.

Sprinkle said the county is expected to again play host to visitors who are partaking in the community's historic tourism attractions in 2011. At that time, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War will get under way, continuing through 2015.

In a previous interview, Sprinkle noted that tourism is the No. 1 industry in the county. In 2006, reports show that historical attractions, outdoor activities and local gaming facilities combined to create nearly 6,670 jobs in the area.

Sprinkle said Tuesday that it is her agency's job to help attract visitors to participate in the many attractions that the local area has to offer.

"What we do is help promote the events as we know they're coming," she said.

In 2008, she said the group placed nearly 10 million ads. The figure was based on the number of ads placed, multiplied by the number of publications and their circulation.

"Of course most of those (ads) had a lot about John Brown," she said. "We usually emphasize the other things we have here too."

Marsha Wassel, spokesperson for Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, had not returned calls from The Journal at presstime.

- Staff writer Naomi Smoot can be reached at (304) 725-6581, or nsmoot@journal-news.net

Source: The Journal [Martinsburg, West Va.], Oct. 27, 2009

A Harper's Ferry Return: Reflections from My Visit, October 15-17, 2009

For the longest time I did not think that I would be able to attend the symposium at Harpers Ferry this month in commemoration of Brown's raid, and since I am scheduled to speak at other John Brown events this fall and winter, I pretty much put aside any idea of going down for the sesquicentennial events in West Virginia. However, about October 1 (the deadline for registration for the symposium) the skies cleared and it became evident that I could get away after all. Unfortunately it was now too late to register, and the Harpers Ferry people didn't even respond to my phone inquiries. I nearly gave up attending, but my wife Michele encouraged me to go anyway. "It's a historic moment for John Brown's legacy, your friends are going to be there, and you should go," she told me.

Things came together: I was able to travel by Amtrak to the Ferry with Larry Lawrence, founder and chairman of The John Brown Society (based in New York City); and Norman Marshall, portrayer of John Brown in the wonderful play, "John Brown: Trumpet of Freedom," offered to share his motel room in Martinsburg, about a half-hour's drive from Harpers Ferry.

Arriving on Thursday afternoon, we had just enough time to drive over to Charlestown, where we were delighted to hear the author Brian McGinty's presentation about the trial of John Brown--delivered in the very same courthouse where the abolitionist and his followers were found guilty and condemned to death. I am reading McGinty's new book, John Brown's Trial and will refrain from making too many comments because I am preparing a review for a scholarly journal. Certainly McGinty's approach throughout was balanced, showing both an appreciation for inequities bound up with the trial (Brown was tried and convicted largely by slaveholders) but also agreeing with the State of Virginia's charge of treason against Brown. (I may be wrong, but I suspect that legal expert and historian Paul Finkelman would not agree.) By the way, Larry made a penetrating comment/question to McGinty which the author evaded. Perhaps he did not want to address the "racist imperialist" theme invoked by our stalwart friend of Brown.

Afterward, under the assumed identity of a registered symposium participant, I "John Browned" my way into Greg Artzner & Terry Leonino's (Magpie) presentation about John and Mary Brown, which I enjoyed from the back row. I particularly liked Greg's performance of John Brown's silent way of laughing, a fact that we know from the testimony of Nellie Russell, the wife of Judge Thomas Russell, who hosted Brown in their Boston home and who also later went down to Charlestown to visit him on "death row." I bought my copy of the Magpie CD back in 2000 in Lake Placid, at an event sponsored by our friend Martha Swan of John Brown Lives!, so it was nice to finally meet these talented and deeply devoted friends of the Old Man.

The next morning I tried to come clean and register for the symposium but was turned away by the Park Service staff. Registration was closed and the catering was precise, or so I was told. Perhaps they would have let me slide had they known I am a John Brown biographer, but trying to get special treatment seemed unworthy of the Old Man's legacy, so I jumped on the next bus down to the Ferry and spent the morning and early afternoon covering the tourist spots and sites of old downtown Harper's Ferry. For the most part, I'd have to say that the mini-museums and restored sites of the town are quite well done and in a couple of hours it is possible to get a fairly good education about the town itself, the John Brown raid being only one portion of its history.

The two John Brown museums in town are very different from each other. The National Park Service's John Brown museum is well done for the most part, and features some important relics and fairly well presents the story of the raid. (Currently, you can enjoy Jean Libby's photo exhibit of John Brown upstairs, who has done the definitive study of dagguereotypes and images of the Old Man, and for which there is a companion volume now on sale on Amazon.com.) The other John Brown museum, which costs $7 for admission, is almost like a "haunted house," where you walk through corridors and look through display windows at very old and often poorly prepared mannequin exhibits portraying various scenes of Brown's life and efforts against slavery (the whole thing seems like it's a left over from the 1960s; the owners are wringing as many bucks as they can out of it before it falls apart).

On Friday afternoon, I had occasion to wait in the welcome center of the Harpers Ferry during which I sat reading, occasionally interested by the mini-lectures provided to tourists by one of the National Park Service representatives. A number of these tourists were foreigners who knew little about antebellum history let alone John Brown. I mention this because some of the Park Service official's remarks that I heard were very telling: "A lot of people around here don't like John Brown very much. . . . We're not celebrating John Brown's raid, we're commemorating it. . . . John Brown the rabid abolitionist." It struck me that these Park Service people are playing the role of educating many people every year regarding the Harper's Ferry episode. How many tourists have been fed this image of Brown as "rabid," a fairly obvious anti-Brown description? I wonder if this same official would speak of slave masters as having been "rabid" too?

I should add that on Friday evening, since I could not march to the Ferry with the symposium folks (it was raining and cold and I probably would have ducked out anyway), I hung around town with Ian Barford, who was taping our whole outing, including plenty of time around the fire engine house (i.e., John Brown's "fort") with a camera equipped with night vision.

On Saturday I got a few minutes to see Jean Libby, finally, as well as John Hendrix, my former parishioner from Jersey City who now resides back home in St. Louis. He is a very successful illustrator and a newly published book for young people entitled, John Brown: His Fight for Freedom. I also saw my dear friends Alice and Fred Mecoy (Alice is a direct descendant--that is, great-great-great-granddaughter of the Old Man), but had unfortunately little time with them this time around and regretably missed her presentation. Just before we left, I was able to slip into one symposium presentation pertaining to black raider Dangerfield Newby and and his widow Harriet Newby. It was revealed that Dangerfield had saved about 750 dollars (about $17,000 today) to buy Harriet and some of his children out of slavery, but this significant sum was not enough. Newby fell in Harper's Ferry and his body was desecrated, as were the bodies of others of Brown's company, to the shame of the "gallant" white Virginians who were not satisfied to kill these liberating invaders.

So that was my time in the Ferry. I enjoyed being there for the importance of the historical moment. I missed a good deal of the symposium itself, but the best of these presentations have a tendency to end up being published in a collection anyway. The most important aspect of the Harpers Ferry event for me was being there--seeing friends and associates in the study, walking the streets and talking with other visitors, and celebrating Brown's effort, even if the National Park Service is only remembering it.

Some Notable John Brown/Harper's Ferry Raid Commemorative Programs in October

TORRINGTON, CONNECTICUT
Friday, October 16th: A Commemorative Event At John Brown's Birthplace (Co-sponsored with the University of Connecticut, Torrington.)

Friday, October 16th @ 4:30pm at the John Brown birthplace on John Brown Road. (Rain or shine)

The schedule is as follows:

Introduction by Mark McEachern, Torrington Historical Society
Dramatic reading from John Brown's Body, a poem by Stephen Vincent Benet
Music from the John Brown Suite by Peter McEachern with Russ Johnson and George Sovak
Remarks on John Brown by Robert P. Forbes, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies, University of Connecticut
Musical selections by the Workman Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church Choir, Torrington. Pastor: Rev. Sowatei K. Lomotey
Musket salute by civil war re-enactors from the CT Civil War Round Table
Music from the John Brown Suite by Peter McEachern with Russ Johnson and George Sovak

At 5:30 pm, there will be a reception in the Litchfield Room, Litchfield County Extension Center, University of Connecticut, Torrington.

Sunday, October 18th: Lecture and Book Signing by Brian McGinty (co-sponsored by University of Connecticut, Torrington.)
Sunday, October 18th @ 5:15 pm at University of Connecticut, Torrington Branch, 855 University Drive.
The final day of the John Brown events includes a lecture and book signing by Brian McGinty, author of John Brown's Trial (Harvard University Press, Oct. 2009).
The book will be available at the University of Connecticut, Torrington bookstore, and the author will sign books after the lecture. McGinty provides the first comprehensive account of John Brown's trial, which raised important questions about jurisdiction, judicial fairness and the nature of treason. McGinty sees the trial, rather than the raid, as the real turning point in the struggle between north and south.
"Recommended for all readers interested in the Civil War..." -- Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia University Library, Parkersburg.
"The author's legal knowledge illuminates the proceedings' intricacies and shortcomings, and reveals how Brown's brief closing statement, considered among the most eloquent words in the nation's history, had a more lasting impact than his armed raid. Brown's statement, writes McGinty, 'transformed his public image from that of a violent fanatic to one of a public hero'. McGinty makes a strong and plausible case." -- Publishers Weekly

The Torrington Historical Society
192 Main Street, Torrington, CT 06790
860-482-8260
http://www.torringtonhistoricalsociety.org


AKRON, OHIO
The Summit County Historical Society will open the freedom fighter's former home, the John Brown House, from 3 to 6 p.m. on three upcoming Tuesdays: Sept. 22, Oct. 27 and Nov. 24. The house is at Diagonal and Copley roads in Akron. To learn more or book group tours at other times, call 330-535-1120.

Brown will be this year's star of the annual Ohio Underground Railroad Summit, a gathering for $75 per person on Friday, Oct. 16, and Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Hudson Library and Historical Society. The library owns a leading trove of Brown materials, which visitors can see for free whenever the building is open. The library is at 96 Library St., 330-653-6658,
hudsonlibrary.org.

On Friday, Oct. 16, officials will commemorate the anniversary of the raid at 11 a.m. at the John Brown Monument, which stands in a normally closed part of the Akron Zoo. The monument was built in 1910 by the German-American Alliance and improved in 1938 by the Negro 25 Year Club.

During the event, Brown will be portrayed by Neil Thackaberry, who runs Actors' Summit on Hudson's Owen Brown Street, named for John Brown's father. Visitors to the commemoration may park at the zoo for free. After the commemoration, the John Brown House will be open until 2 p.m.

From Oct. 16 through Feb. 14, the Akron Art Museum will display "The Legend of John Brown," featuring celebrated prints by Jacob Lawrence in the museum's collection, at normal hours and admission prices, 330-376-9185, akronartmuseum.org.

On Saturday, Oct. 17, Leon Bibb of WEWS Channel 5 will narrate and the Akron Symphony Orchestra will perform a John Brown concert, including the debut of "The Passion of John Brown" by Jesse Ayers, a Malone College professor. The concert will begin at 8 p.m. at E.J. Thomas Hall. For details, call 330-535-8131 or see akronsymphony.org.

On Wednesday, Dec. 2, Akron leaders will commemorate the anniversary of Brown's hanging at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 647 E. Market St. At the end, the church bells will toll, as many local bells did 150 years ago that day.

Through the rest of 2009, an exhibit of artifacts called "Summit County's John Brown" will be on view in the Special Collections department on the third floor of the downtown Akron-Summit County Public Library, 60 S. High St., 330-643-9000, akronlibrary.org.

In 1865, Oberliners raised a monument to three slain local raiders, among the first black Americans so remembered. The tribute stands today at Martin Luther King Park, East Vine and South Pleasant streets.

The monument is part of a local "Freedom's Friends" tour by the Oberlin Heritage Center at 11 a.m. the second Friday and fourth Saturday of each month through October and by appointment. For details, call 440-774-1700 or see oberlinheritage.org.

Besides the John Brown House, his only local home still open to the public is now Benedict's Antiques, 4138 W. Streetsboro Road, Richfield, 330-659-3427. The shop is open 12:30 to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
Symposium on abolitionist to be held at Springfield Technical Community College
Saturday, September 26, 2009

"The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon: John Brown & The Coming of the Civil War," a symposium on the militant abolitionist from Connecticut who led the raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va., on Oct. 16, 1859, will be held on Oct. 17 at Springfield Technical Community College.

David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, will be the keynote speaker.

Dinah Mayo-Bobee, visiting professor of history at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, will also present on Brown and the "Pottawatomie Affair."

Richard Colton, historian at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, will discuss the destruction of Harpers Ferry and its effect on the armory.

John F. Gately, chair of the English department at the community college, will present and discuss some Brown related items from his abolitionist collection.

Brown, who is the subject of a panel in the new Museum of Springfield History set to open on Oct. 10, and his family moved to the Springfield to establish a method of distribution that would offer a wider and fairer market for raw wool. Although the company failed, the four years Brown spent in Springfield were crucial to his deepening involvement in the abolitionist movement.

A book signing of Reynolds' best-selling biography will be held after the symposium.
Registration would be appreciated and can be done by notifying John Gately at Gately@stcc.edu

PETERBORO, NEW YORK
Norman K. Dann Ph.D. explains the support of Gerrit Smith and the Secret Six for John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, which took place October 16, 1869. Dann will present on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 2 p.m.

The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark is located at 4543 Peterboro Road in Peterboro NY. There is a $2 admission and free to students, stewards, and residents of the Town of Smithfield.

For more information, visit www.sca-peterboro.org or call 315-684-3262.

John Brown's Akron Celebrates His Legacy:
Jacob Lawrence's "The Legend of John Brown" on Exhibit; Other Events Featured

This fall marks the 150th anniversaries of John Brown’s anti-slavery raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, a pivotal event in igniting the Civil War, and his Dec. 2, 1859 execution. To commemorate Akron’s most famous historic resident, the Akron Art Museum presents selections from Jacob Lawrence’s print series The Legend of John Brown. The exhibition will be on view from Oct. 16 to Feb. 14, 2010. Lawrence, one of the most significant American artists of the 20th century, was the first African American to depict the story of the controversial white abolitionist.

Lawrence’s screenprints, which are owned by the museum, will be joined by related images and artifacts from the Summit County Historical Society and the Akron-Summit County Public Library Special Collections Division.

A Northerner, Brown (1800-1859) worked on farms in Northeast Ohio before moving to Akron in 1844. An expert breeder of sheep and respected authority on wool, he attracted the attention of fellow shepherd Simon Perkins, Jr., the son of Akron’s founder. The two formed a business partnership and Brown moved into a two-room cottage yards away from Perkins’ own mansion.

Brown’s religious convictions led him to oppose slavery. While working with Perkins, he remained an active abolitionist and regularly housed slaves moving through the Underground Railroad in his Akron home. Now part of the Summit County Historical Society, it houses a permanent display about Brown’s life.

In contrast with the northern pacifist attitude, Brown believed that militant actions were the only way to end slavery. In the mid-1850s, he organized covert attacks in an attempt to liberate slaves and bring down the pro-slavery establishment. In 1859, with a company of 21 men—white and black—he led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was captured and hanged for treason on December 2. While historians agree that Brown’s actions helped spark the Civil War, his dogged determination and the violence of his methods have been hailed as both heroic and foolhardy.
Jacob Lawrence’s screenprints frame the story as a narrative, which is the depiction of a particular story in either painted or graphic form. Each image presents a specific incident in Brown’s dramatic life. Rather than depicting these events in a realistic manner, Lawrence tells the story using sparse details rendered with simplified forms and vibrant colors, which heightens each scene’s emotion.

Lawrence (1917-2000), who lived in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, was the first African American artist to be included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was a storyteller who used the visual arts to interpret and disseminate important events in American history. His prominence as an artist undoubtedly helped perpetuate the remarkable story of John Brown’s life as an abolitionist.

This exhibition is organized by the Akron Art Museum and supported by a gift from Akron General.



Related Community Events

Akron-Summit County Public Library John Brown exhibit
On View through December 31
Visit Special Collections to see the Summit County’s John Brown exhibit, including historical artifacts from Akron during the era and small glimpses into all the different time periods of his life: moving to Hudson, Ohio as a young boy, his own life as a husband and father, business failures, the infamous raid at Harpers Ferry and finally his hanging as a traitor in 1859.

150th Anniversary of the Harpers Ferry Raid at the Akron Zoo
October 16, 11 am
A commemorative event will be held at the Akron Zoo grounds and the John Brown Monument in Perkins Woods.

The Passion of John Brown by the Akron Symphony Orchestra
October 17, 8 pm
The Akron Symphony will perform a new work, commissioned for the Akron sesquicentennial commemoration, “The Passion of John Brown,” by Malone College professor Jesse Ayers, in a concert remembering the heroic works of historic figures. The concert will be held at E.J. Thomas Hall.

150th Anniversary of John Brown’s Execution
December 2
To commemorate the day of the execution of John Brown, on December 2, 2009, the City of Akron and Summit County Historical Society will hold a memorial event in collaboration with the First Presbyterian Church on East Market Street in Akron.


Museum Information
Address: One South High, Akron, OH 44308
Tel: 330.376.9185
Fax: 330.376.1180
Website: www.AkronArtMuseum.org
Gallery and Store Hours: Wednesday – Sunday: 11 am – 5 pm, Thursday: 11 am – 9 pm, Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Café Hours: Wednesday – Sunday: 11 am – 3 pm, Thursday: 11 am – 7:30 pm; Closed Monday and Tuesday
Library Hours: Wednesday, Thursday & Friday: 11 am – 4 pm
Admission: Adult general admission is $7, Student and Senior (65+) general admission is $5, Children (12 and under) are FREE, members are FREE. On the first Sunday of every month, individual admissions to the collection are FREE. Special exhibitions may require paid admission. No tours available on these days.

Source: The Suburbanite.com [Akron, Ohio], September 21, 2009

The Gilder-Lehrman Instituate and New York Historical Society's

JOHN BROWN EXHIBIT

September 15, 2009-March 25, 2010

The Gilder-Lehrman collection, an amazing archive for anyone and everyone interested in U.S. history, holds an amazing amount of John Brown material--particularly letters from Brown and his children. By all accounts, it is one of the most important collections of the several major John Brown holdings across the country.

According to the Gilder-Lehrman Institute's website:

On view from September 15, 2009 through March 25, 2010, this exhibition of rare materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection and the New-York Historical Society also sets the stage for the culminating presentation of the Historical Society’s Lincoln Year, with the landmark exhibition Lincoln and New York, opening October 9, 2009.

“John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy examines Brown in the context of growing national divisions over slavery in the 1850s,” said James G. Basker, President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “Most African Americans and abolitionists saw John Brown as a martyr for a noble and humane cause. Others saw him as a terrorist who attacked legal institutions and was willing to kill to achieve his goals. This exhibition invites people to examine the tension between these divergent views at the critical moment in American history, with repercussions down to the Civil Rights movement of the twentieth century.”

"John Brown’s attack at Harpers Ferry convinced Southerners that their political and economic survival was threatened, while outrage over his execution rallied and unified Northern abolitionists,” according to Louise Mirrer, President and CEO of the New-York Historical Society. “As we continue our year-long celebration of Abraham Lincoln, we hope these extraordinary and seldom-seen materials will not only shed light on Brown himself but will help illuminate events that led to Lincoln’s election in 1860."

Visitors to the exhibition will encounter manuscripts never before exhibited, including dramatic letters by John Brown to his followers; a letter by Frederick Douglass praising Brown but distancing himself from the raid; Brown's parting words on the eve of his execution; a letter from the mother of a Kansas murder victim, damning Brown on the scaffold; and reminiscences by Brown's children and other eyewitnesses.

Lending dramatic context to these materials are powerful images, such as the 1859 sculpture “The Slave Auction” by John Rogers; the heroic 1867 painting by Thomas Satterwhite Noble, "John Brown's Blessing"; photographs of Brown and his family members; photographs of his supporters, the "Secret Six"; and photographs of other key participants. Among the other important objects on view will be a "John Brown Still Lives!" broadside from 1859; a rare printing of the Emancipation Proclamation; a 1926 lynching poster; and other artifacts of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras.

Apparently most of the materials on display are from the Gilder-Lehrman Collection, although researchers should be aware that the New York Historical Society, which hosts and houses the Gilder-Lehrman Collection, has its own prestigious holdings which include John Brown letters and documents.

As to James Basker's remarks quoted above, we should point out that the term "terrorist" was not in use in the U.S. in the antebellum era, so this portrayal is anachronistic. To be sure, John Brown was viewed as an invader and killer by his enemies (the defenders of slavery), but given the fact that slavery had its own share of invaders and killers, one should not confuse certain contemporary notions (put forth largely by white scholars and intellectuals) of Brown as a "terrorist" with the inimical perception of Brown by pro-slavery people in the antebellum era. Similarly, the reference to a "letter from the mother of a Kansas murder victim" is a loaded description. Undoubtedly a reference to the letter of Mahala Doyle to John Brown, this is indeed the letter from the widow and bereaved mother of three men killed by Brown's men in May 1856. The question remains to what degree they were "victims": in the most literal sense, the Doyle men, father and two sons, were Brown's victims because they were apprehended and executed at his direction. But in the broader sense, the Doyles, along with the two other men killed by Brown's men in May 1856, were conspirators, collaborators in a plot to murder, and essentially insurgents--so that killing them was more a strike against victimization, a kind of counter-terrorism (to engage Mr. Basker's terminology).

Whatever the case, readers of this blog who reside within reach of New York City are advised to make the trip to the New York Historical Society, not only for the Gilder-Lehrman Exhibit, but beyond that to utilize these great archival resources for research and study. For further information, visit the New York Historical Society website and the Gilder-Lehrman Institute website.

John Brown, Slavery, and the Legacies of Revolutionary Violence in Our Own Time:
A Conference Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Harpers Ferry Raid
Gilder Lehrman Center's 11th Annual International Conference
October 29-31, 2009

Discussions of the place of violence--its forms, its causes, its justice or injustice--in American history often begin with John Brown and his exploits in Kansas and at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in the 1850s. Brown's image has been appropriated by groups from the left and the right. He is a historical as well as a legendary figure, and often the myth overshadows the reality. This conference will explore the meaning and memory of John Brown as well as the problem of violence in American culture, past and present.


Schedule
Conference Participants
Thursday, October 29
7:00 – 7:30 p.m. Conference Registration

7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Performance

* Performance of John Brown: Trumpet of Freedom
Norman Thomas Marshall, Playwright and Actor
Introduction by Larry Lawrence, The John Brown Society

Friday, October 30
8:30 - 9:00 a.m. Coffee and Registration

9:00 - 9:15 a.m. Welcome Remarks

9:15 - 10:30 a.m. Keynote Address

* W. Fitzhugh Brundage, UNC-Chapel Hill

10:30 - 11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Panel 1: John Brown: A Problem in Biography

* David Reynolds, City University of New York, Baruch College
How I Wrote John Brown, Abolitionist: A Cultural Biography
* Evan Carton, The University of Texas at Austin
The Word and the Life: John Brown as Reader
* Robert Blakeslee Gilpin,Center for the Study of the American South, UNC-Chapel Hill
The Wind and the Whirlwind: Can Biography Explain John Brown?
* Louis A. DeCaro, Nyack College and Alliance Theological Seminary
* Moderator: Annette Gordon Reed, New York Law School

1:00 - 2:30 p.m. Lunch

2:30 - 5:00 p.m. Panel 2: John Brown and the Arts

* Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, University of Pennsylvania
John Brown Embodied: An Afterlife in American Visual Culture
* Franny Nudelman, Carleton University
From Armed Propaganda to Creative Suffering: John Brown and Traditions of Expressive Violence
* Kirke Mechem, Composer
John Brown: The Opera
* Robert Stepto, Yale University
John Brown in the Visual Art of Hovenden, Lawrence and Pippin
* Moderator: David W. Blight, Yale University

6:30 p.m. Speakers Dinner

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31
9:00 - 9:30 a.m. Coffee and Registration

9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Panel 3: John Brown and the Legacies of Violence

* Beverly Gage, Yale University
Was John Brown a Terrorist?
* David Rapoport, UCLA
John Brown and the Legacies of Violence
* Kay Wright Lewis, Rutgers University
Considerations on the Rhetoric of Race War in the Antebellum South
* Caleb Smith, Yale University
* Moderator: David W. Blight, Yale University

11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch

1:00 - 3:00 p.m. Panel 4: John Brown and Abolitionism

* John Stauffer, Harvard University
'I'll be John Browned': Abolition in the Southern Imagination
* Richard Blackett, Vanderbilt University
John Brown and the Tradition of Attacking Slavery at the Source
* Caleb McDaniel, Rice University
William Lloyd Garrison, Nonviolent Abolitionists, and John Brown
* Wendy Hamand Venet, Georgia State University
John Brown, Female Abolitionists, and Rights for Women: A Mixed Legacy
* Moderator: David W. Blight, Yale University

3:00 - 3:15 p.m. Coffee break

3:15 - 4:30 p.m. Concluding Roundtable: John Brown: A Problem for Our Own Time

* Russell Banks, Author
* Tony Horwitz, Author

For further information, visit the conference website here

OSAWATOMIE NEWS

Brown Fought In Spite of Unfavorable Odds

Source: Grady Atwater, Osawatomie Graphic [Osawatomie, Kan.], Sept. 2, 2009

Luke Parsons* was an abolitionist who fought alongside John Brown at the Battle of Osawatomie on Aug. 30, 1856. Parsons delivered a speech in the town on “John Brown’s Day” on Aug. 30, 1913, and at the time was the last living survivor of the Battle of Osawatomie living in Kansas.

Parsons stated that John Reid and his pro-slavery force’s purpose in attacking here was to “destroy the town of Osawatomie and arrest John Brown and his little band, charging them with treason.”

According to Parsons, Brown was aware that he could not win the Battle of Osawatomie. He said that “Brown, through his spies and scouts, knew they were coming, knew their strength and purpose, and with his small band could offer but feeble resistance.”

Brown was most concerned about the safety of the citizens of Osawatomie and told Parsons: “We must save the women and children first, and then save ourselves if we can. We will attract their attention while the men get their families out of danger.”

Brown’s willingness to die for his abolitionist beliefs is made clear when he gave the order to “take more pains to end life well than to live long.”

Brown’s first plan was for Parsons to take 10 men and make a stand in a blockhouse while Brown and his men fired at the pro-slavery flank from the trees along the Marais des Cygnes River. However, when Parsons and his men observed that the pro-slavery force had a cannon that could blow the blockhouse to smithereens, they abandoned the structure.

Parsons reported that Brown “conducted this battle coolly, courageously and well. He showed no fear whatever.”

He also observed that Brown placed his men in the timber so Reid and his pro-slavery force did not know how many men Brown had with him. The pro-slavery forces initially charged Brown’s forces on horseback, but the charge failed, and Parsons noted: “There was never a better opportunity to shoot men, they in plain sight, mounted on green horses, trying to form a new line.” This gave ample time for Brown’s men to aim and fire, and Parsons could “see them fall all along the line until they got wise enough to dismount.”

The pro-slavery forces’ cannon proved to be no real threat, as Parsons reported: “The cannon bothered them more than us, for they fired too high.”

However, Parsons went on to say that “their overwhelming numbers began to tell to their advantage. They pressed us back slowly, we falling back one at a time until it got too hot for us, but we kept up the line well until we got to the riverbank; here. we gave way altogether, to take a new position in a log house on the other bank. “Brown waited there to fight on, but the pro-slavery forces rode into Osawatomie and sacked and burned the town.”

Grady Atwater is the esteemed curator and tourism director of the city of Osawatomie, Kansas, and an important grassroots scholar of John Brown studies. We are always delighted to publish his articles, which play a major role in keeping Brown's Kansas legacy alive in this generation.--LD

*For more information, see Edward P. Bridgman and Luke F. Parson, With John Brown in Kansas: The Battle of Osawatomie (Davidson: Madison, Wis., 1915).

John Brown Museum Receives $92,000 for Building Repair

Source: Travis Perry, Osawatomie Graphic [Osawatomie, Kan.], Sept. 2, 2009

As the rain came down Aug. 26, a crew of workers scrambled to cover the roof of John Brown Museum with a tarp to keep the water from leaking through the unfinished roof.

Still, things are in much better condition than they were even two years ago, said Grady Atwater, administrator of John Brown State Historic Site.

The museum is receiving a $92,000 overhaul that will be completed during the next two years in three phases — the first of which involves the repair of a leaky roof, an issue Atwater has been talking about since 2005.

“I vividly remember the day,” said Atwater of his first encounter with the leak. He was a volunteer at the time.

“I looked around, and it was leaking all around, pouring down the walls,” he said.

But that was nothing compared with the woes he and countless others in Osawatomie faced during the 2007 flood.

“Water was about one inch above the ground (around the museum),” Atwater said. “I was in here literally pushing water away from the cabin.”

After vigorously lobbying the Kansas State Historical Society for the funding needed to fix the building, the issue was finally put on the front burner in 2008, when federal stimulus funding allowed the project to be put into motion. The work was handled by a crew from J.A. Lyden, a Topeka-based construction company that specializes in work on historic buildings. Crew superintendent Troy Carpenter said the group has been working on the roof since Aug. 12, and he hopes to have the first phase of the project completed by the end of September.

In the second phase of the project, an underground drainage-tile system will be installed around the museum to divert water away from the structure, and all the windows and doors will be replaced in the final phase.

Atwater said the available funding may not be sufficient to fully complete the last phase of the project, meaning donations to the museum are still as important as ever.

But, he said, the project is worth every penny.

“The only other cabin (people have) taken this much care to preserve belonged to Abraham Lincoln,” Atwater said of the Adair Cabin in the museum. “We have to protect this cabin; it’s a precious cabin.”

---------

FREEDOM FESTIVAL
John Brown Memorial Park
10th and Main Streets
Osawatomie, Kansas 66064
September 19-20, 2009

Freedom Festival Arts and Crafts Fair, Frontier Artisans, Children's Activities, and Food Vendors

Program Summary

Saturday Sept. 19
10 a.m. Civil War weapons and drill demonstration
11 a.m. Debbie Shadden and Pony Express
1 p.m. Civil War weapons and drill demonstration
1:30 p.m. Florella Adair, portrayed by Mary Buster
2:00 p.m. Abraham Lincoln, portrayed by Tom Leahy
3:00 p.m. John Brown, portrayed by Kerry Altenbernd
4:00 p.m. Reenactment of the Battle of Osawatomie

Sunday Sept. 20
10 a.m. Church service in John Brown Memorial Park
11 a.m. Todd Mildfelt, Civil War era music
12 p.m. The Lecompton Reenactors play "Bleeding Kansas"
1 p.m. Reenactment of a Civil War battle between Confederate Partisans and Union Troops
2 p.m. Mary Jane Richie, abolitionist, underground railroad conductor, portrayed by Anne Hawkins
3 p.m. Amelia Earhart, portrayed by Ann Birney
1-5 p.m., Army National Guard Climbing Wall

Contact info: 913.755.4384 or adaircabin@kshs.org

More About Illustrator/Writer John Hendrix and His New Book, John Brown: His Fight for Freedom

Source: Terry Rombeck, "Story for All Ages: KU Alumnus Writes Book on John Brown," The Journal-World & News [Lawrence, Kan.], Sept. 1, 2009

This might be the only illustrated children’s book that has the hero hanged at the end. But, true to history, that’s how it goes in John Brown: His Fight for Freedom, a 40-page book full of colorful drawings that is released today. It’s the project of John Hendrix, a Kansas University graduate now living in St. Louis.

“Part of the desire of mine is to revitalize his reputation in some ways,” Hendrix says. “I have a point of view about him. If I gloss over the stuff that’s controversial or icky, this could be easily dismissed as propaganda. That’s not helpful in telling the history.”

It’s a story that’s been told many times about the abolitionist, who is viewed as anything from a civil rights hero to the father of modern terrorism. But it’s probably never been told quite like this, with double-page illustrations and words that Hendrix figures are appropriate for a fifth-grade audience. “By then, they’re learning what slavery was,” the author says. “I see it as a supplement to a history class.”

Hendrix lived in Lawrence from 1994 to 1999, earning two degrees from KU. It was during his time here that he worked on his first John Brown project, a brochure on the history of northeastern Kansas for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce. When he moved to New York a few years later, he met a pastor who had written a book about Brown. Several colleagues encouraged him to pursue a children’s book on the abolitionist using his illustration skills, which he has used for publications such as Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and The New York Times.

“Honestly, I thought that was a crazy idea,” he says.

Eventually, Scholastic Press signed on. He worked several years with that publisher until it eventually decided the subject matter might not be a good fit. That’s when he found Abrams Books, which agreed to pursue the project.

All of the major moments in Brown’s life are represented in the book, including the killing of five pro-slavery settlers on Pottawatomie Creek by Brown and his sons and the fact that the first man killed during the raid at Harpers Ferry — where Brown was attempting to take over an armory — was a free black man named Shephard Hayward.

The book also ends the same way Brown’s life ended: with his hanging for the Harpers Ferry attack. But Hendrix says he did try to keep the violence in check, limiting the number of guns and battle scenes in the book. The biggest challenge, he says, was to depict Brown as someone who was “both sane and fiery and compassionate” — especially considering many people identify his image first and foremost with the John Steuart Curry mural that hangs in the state Capitol in Topeka.

“The eyes very much came into play,” Hendrix says. “His face was very stoic. Moses meets Superman is kind of our pose. I wanted him to have grandfatherly wisdom on top of strength and size.”

And for as important as the drawings are, he wanted to make sure the history was as accurate as a textbook. “It’s listed as a nonfiction book,” he says. “We had to be rigorous with our facts. We really didn’t want this to fall into historical fiction.”

The facts pass the test, as far as Jonathan Earle is concerned. Earle is an associate professor of history at KU who studied the Civil War and who himself has authored a book on Brown. He admits he was skeptical when he first heard of Hendrix’s book. But after reading it, he says it works. “He cites the important works, takes John Brown’s religion and gets into how his thinking was far out of the mainstream,” Earle says. “He makes that a central part of the book.”

And he was surprised at how directly the book dealt with the controversial periods of Brown’s life. “There’s difficult stuff,” Earle says. “He doesn’t avoid the difficult parts of the biography, such as John Brown and his sons murdering the settlers in Pottawatomie. He doesn’t airbrush him.”

Hendrix sees Brown more of a civil rights leader than a terrorist. He’d like to share that view with a new generation of historians — starting them out in elementary school. “I think he was much more akin to Martin Luther King than John Dillinger,” Hendrix says.

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