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John Brown and the African-American Community

What is the relation of the life and sacrifice of John Brown to the present

African-American Community? How much does his life of dedication to the

freeing of slaves and his consequent death in the attempt, resonate in the

African-American community at the present time. Is his remembrance of any

consequence to the Black community of the present day? And if remembered

at all by the Community at large, does his life carry an import to the

continued struggle for equality? Anniversaries provide unusual opportunities

to draw attention and stimulate interest in historic figures and events. A

century and a half after his death, John Brown remains one of the most

controversial figures in American history. On December 2, 1859, John Brown

was hanged.

In relation to the broader context of slavery, the abolitionist movement, and

the American civil rights movement, what is the memory of John Brown’s

attempt to consider and execute a raid on a military installation to free

slaves in the hope of their participation on a national level to stamp out

slavery in the entire nation? Is there any recollection of his events at all

among the African-American community today? Is there a communitarian

spirit among Black peoples that still exists—in particular with the insurrection

today of a black man as President? “Last week, the Pew Research Center

published the astonishing finding that 37 percent of African

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Americans polled felt that ‘blacks today can no longer be thought of as single

race’ because of a widening class divide”1

Has his life and adventures been purloined only to fabricate and manufacture

a national park service installation? Or is it something more? If violence is

the criteria for freedom of slavery—what is to be the conclusion of Malcolm

X’s—by any means necessary? Do we have any instances of African-

American community’s reprisal and retrofitting the execution of John Brown?

To what extent can the present African-American community indulge in a

forgetfulness of the hanging of John Brown and maintain a rigorous growth

and expansion of Black progress without paying tribute, or the least,

acknowledgment of the importance of Brown’s death.

By deploying a range of analytical registers to deal with John Brown’ hanging,

the present mood of the African American community, in situ, I propose to

investigate, and come up with conclusions that show the need to look at the

African American attitude today and its relevant icon John Brown. Or as David

S. Reynolds writes in the subtitle to his book: “John Brown, Abolitionist: The

Man who killed slavery, sparked the Civil War, and seeded Civil Rights.”2

1
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 18 November 2007. The New York Times. “Dispatches from the
Editor in Chief” Oxford African American Studies Center; The online authority on the
African American experience. New York Times, 18 November 2007. Reprinted with
permission. Archived:4/23/2009, at:
http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/letters/letter_2.jsp/

2
Reynolds, David S. 2005. John Brown, Abolitionist. NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Title page.
2
Malcolm X and the black liberation movement: “by any means

necessary”

“We are not here at this [Harlem] rally because we have already gained

freedom. No!!!

We are gathered here rallying for the freedom which we have long been

promised, but have as yet not received.”3 The radicalism that Malcolm X

required of the African Americans to free themselves of Americanism is the

same radical element that forged John Brown and hit raid on Harpers Ferry,

VA., in 1859. The same limitations and possibilities of the Negro situation in

the 1800s that John Brown viewed were similar to those that Malcolm X saw

in the 1900s. Malcolm was a key figure in the change from civil rights to

black power4 John believed that similar circumstances obtained in the 1850s.

Freedom for black Americans in the first-half of the 19th century had several

champions. Among them was the abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison.5

Garrison founded a newspaper, The Liberator, and distributed widely

throughout the country particularly in the North. His abolitionist approach

3
Black Liberation Movement, in, We Are Not What We Seem, by Rod Bush. NY & London:
1999. p. 212.
4
Racial Formation in the United State: From the 1960s to the 1990s. (1994) 2nd ed., Omi,
Michael and Howard Winant. Routledge: NY & London. p. 103.
5
Garrison was also a pacifist and involved in other reform movements. He was deeply
convinced that slavery had to be abolished by moral force.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761559647/William_Lloyd_Garrison.html

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could be termed a quiet and gradual one to the emancipation of Negro

slaves at the time. Garrison’s approach was of a pacifist nature to free the

Negro. But even for him he was dissatisfied with the lack of momentum of

emancipation of all enslaved African Americans. ‘Moral force’ would not solve

quickly or completely, the horror of slavery in the United States.

Brown, who had consulted with Garrison on several occasions, could see that

the abolitionist and peaceful movement to free slaves was no progressing

fast enough for John Brown. Garrison, himself was discouraged with the slow

movement of Negro Emanicipation. What would be named civil rights

demands today or in the 1960s, John Brown called civil rights for all peoples

God‘s demands for justice and equality. His letters and his pronouncements

upon the issue of slavery show his anger and impatience at the continuing

strange longevity of this despicable chain of events: slavery in the United

States. John Brown’s mission to eradicate the ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery

was God-given to him personally. For Brown, Emanicipation was more than a

political vision—to see the States united—and even more than a moral force

to bring together whites and blacks and all others.

Brown’s charismatic and emotional appeals for freedom of blacks even

garnered the support even in the “hotbed of transcendentalism” (such as

Concord, Mass.)6Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau and Ellery Channing,

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His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid.
(1995).Finkelman, Paul (Ed). Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. p.23.
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along with townspeople of Concord, fell at his feet when listening declaims

slavery. In public declamations and in poetry and editorials, Brown’s

purposes for violent overthrow of the institution of slavery, all helped turn

the country into two camps—one free, the other enslaved. He accepted his

trial and eventual execution as more favorable sign for the elimination of

slavery: “I am worth now infinitely more to die than to live” he had told his

brother.7

John Brown and African Americans

The moral force of abolitionism did not carry the day for long. Even William

Lloyd Garrisonwas ready to give the peaceful procedures to anti-slavery and

contemplate a more violent approach to rid the nation of slavery. The violent

approach had rid the Kansas-Missouri territories of the free-states vs. the

slave-states. In New England more work had to be done. Brown acted—or

believed he was acting—on behalf of enslaved African Americans, although

in fact he had little contact with African Americans.8 But this is not the

current view of John Brown among African Americans.

From the beginning of the contacts between blacks and whites,


there
has been very little reason for a black man to respect a white,
with such exceptions as John Brown and other lesser known9

7
Finkelman, op. cit .p 45.
8
Finkelman, p. 301.
9
Soul on Ice (1968). Eldridge Cleaverp.82-83, As Quoted in Blacks on John Brown (1972)
Benjamin Quarles (Ed) Chicago: Univ. of Illinois press, p. 107.
5
Among other African Americans who praised John Brown was Malcolm X,
whom in January 1965

Said:

I don’t go for any nonviolent white liberals…If you are for me and
my problems—
When I say me I mean us, our people—then you have to b e
willing to do as old John Brown did10

What is the revolutionary posture necessary to beget equal rights for all
Americans? Nor is the

rebellious nature of John Brown that of a revolutionary. His was a religious

rebellion to spearhead a revolutionary to free the enslaved Negro.

John Brown was thought by many, even among his friends, to be


insane. But an exhibition of such insanity was required to
arouse the nation against the crime of slavery and to bring on
the civil war.11

Even though—‘insane’--Abraham Lincoln had his doubts about John Brown’s

Harpers Ferry raid, he (Lincoln) could joke about the disastrous Raid. On

December 2, [1859] from a church at Atchison, Lincoln spoke of Southern

threats to secede, declaring “that any attempt at secession would be

treason.”12 Furthermore, he added: “If they [the Southerners] attempt to put

their threats into execution we will hang them as they have hanged old John

today.” 13

10
Malcolm X Speaks, (1965). George Breitman, (ed.) p. 241, As Quoted in Blacks on John
Brown (1972) Benjamin Quarles (Ed) Chicago: Univ. of Illinois press, p. 107.
11
Ransom, Reverdy C. (1906). The Voice of the Negro (Atlanta), October 1906, p. 417. As
quoted in Quarles, (op. cit.), p. 83.
12
Burlingame, Michael. (2008). Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University press. vol. 1, p. 576.
13
Burlingame, (idem.) As quoted from: Reminiscences Senator John Ingalls, Washington
Post, 29 June 1890, and from, John James Ingalls, “A Forgotten Chapter of History: Abraham
Lincoln in Kansas in 1859,” New York Sun, 31 May 1891.
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Lincoln went on to calibrate the questionable value of John Brown’s sacrifice.

The next day, Dec. 3, 1859, in Leavenworth [Kansas], Lincoln again

addressed the case of John Brown.

Old John Brown has just been executed for treason against a
state. We cannot
object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong.
That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason. It could
avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So if
constitutionally we elect a [Republican] President, and therefore
you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal
with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to
do our duty. We hope and believe that in no section will a
majority so act as to render such extreme measures necessary.14

We are accustomed to the overnight successes, unexpected comebacks,

and sudden reversals of celebrity culture, we might still find

cause to wonder at the course of John Brown’s fame. At the time

of his capture in October 1859, Brown was a pariah, a fanatic, a

blunderer of enormous proportions. By the summer of 1861 he

was a mascot of sorts for the Union army—his death commemorated

time and again as soldiers prepared to fight, his name synonymous

with bravery, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. No one was

more aggrieved by this transformation than John Wilkes Booth.

Writing to his brother-in-law in 1864 he lamented that “what was

a crime in poor John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as

14
Burlingame, (idem.) As quoted from CWL, 3:502; i.e., Roy P. Basler et al., eds., Collected
Works of Abraham Lincoln ( 8 vols. Plus index; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University press,
1953-1955)
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the greatest and only virtue”15

What characterizes the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, or the Civil

rights Movements of the Raid and the African Americans of the 1960s? Does

one influence the other sociological and politic happening? How and Why

and Should it have done so? We must ask: What was the nature of John

Brown’s “final colossal blunder?”16 Or perhaps John Brown’s reading habits

can tell us something about the Raid that went awry. Brown went to Harpers

Ferry for the sole purpose of waging a successful war. God, who had lead

[sic] him through the blood and fire of Kansas, told him to ‘carry the war into

Africa.’17

Some General Comments

The founding of the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s has its anchor in

John Brown. The “Black Rebellion” is it a historical evolution toward Freedom,

or a compromising step in the general direction of formal prejudice and

racism. 18
Furthermore, it is no accident that the Black Rebellion of the [19]

sixties opened the whole question of freedom in America.19

15
Nudelman, Franny. “The Blood of Millions”: John Brown’s Body, Public Violence, and
Political Community.
American Literary History, Volume 13, Number 4, Winter 2001, pp. 639-670 (Article)
© 2001 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. p. 639.
16
Milhouse, Phil. (1959). A Footnote to John Brown’s Raid. The Virginia Magazine of History
and Biography, v. 67, no. 4 (Oct. 1959), 396-398. p. 396.
17
Milhouse, Phil. (op. cit.) p. 397.
18
Bennett, Lerone Jr. (1972). The Challenge of Blackness. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co.
p. 149-150 (passim).
19
Bennett, Lerone Jr. (op.cit. p.148.
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