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John Brown, The Blackest White Man (1800 1859)

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John Brown, The Blackest White Man


(1800 1859)
John Brown
was an
American
abolitionist
and a True
Hero who
used violent
actions to
fight slavery.
During 1856
in Kansas,
Brown
John Brown, The Blackest White Man in American History (1800 1859) commanded
forces at the
Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie. Brown's followers
also killed five pro-slavery supporters at Pottawatomie. In 1859,
abolitionist John Brown led a small group on a raid against a federal
armory in Harpers Ferry in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and
destroy the institution of slavery. Brown was arrested, tried, and hung.

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"John Brown: A White Role Model" by William Loren


Katz
John Brown was born in 1800, and he was executed by the state of
Virginia on December 2, 1859. This year (2006) a PBS documentary
film continued an effort that began even before his execution to sully
his reputation. Why? He was a white man who gave his life fighting
slavery but he did so before Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation. He was a premature emancipationist. However, two
years after John Browns death Union soldiers marched into the South
singing of the manhis truth goes marching on. In the year 2000
PBS film finds no truths about Brown worth repeating. The
documentary begins with a long, slow scene showing Brown being led
to the gallows and ends with a long slow scene showing him being led
to the gallows. This could seem like a warning to similarly inclined
white people, and the public deserves better.
Brown was a devout Christian who saw slavery as violence and whose
favorite Biblical quote was Remember them that are in bonds, as
bound with them. He swore his entire family to the anti-slavery

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struggle; led armed bands that rescued enslaved people, and was an
active agent of the underground railroad. In 1856 Brown fought
slaveholders fire with rifle fire in the Kansas Civil War. He was not a
man to be trifled with. When President James Buchanan offered a $250
reward for Browns capture, he offered $2.50 for Buchanans.
In 1858, he met in Canada with dozens of African Americans,
including the father of Black nationalism, Martin R. Delany, to develop
his liberation plan. The next year Brown led five African Americans,
and 17 whites including three of his sons, to seize the government
arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Their goal was to arm enslaved people, help
them reach the Allegheny mountains, help them wage a war against
bondage.
Enslaved African Americans rallied to Browns forces at Harpers
Ferry, but this has long been hidden from the public. Federal troops
under Captain Robert E. Lee who commanded a Marine detachment
surrounded the arsenal and boxed in Browns men. Ten of the raiders
died fighting, five escaped, including one African American, and
Brown and the others were captured. Virginia tried and convicted
Brown of treason. Attending his execution were Lee, Stonewall
Jackson, and John Wilkes Booth, three men soon to embark on a more
massive treason of their own.
School textbooks have not forgiven Brown for his interracial band, his
fearlessness, and his armed response to slavery. The textbook, The
American Pageant by Bailey and Kennedy describes Browns exploit
as insane, mad exploit, crack-brained scheme, bloody purpose.
African Americans saw Brown differently. They saw a man who looked
at slavery as they did. Haiti, born of a slave rebellion, named a
boulevard after him. W.E.B. DuBois called his biography of Brown his
favorite book. Benjamin Quarles wrote a book on the positive response
to the man and his deed by African Americans. In 1964, Malcolm X
asked if would admit a white man to his new organization, said John
Brown. This year Harlems Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture honored Brown with a special program, and I was a speaker
there.
Brown was born the year that Gabriel organized a massive slave plot to
capture Richmond, Virginia, and the year Nat Turner, who would lead a
massive slave revolt in Virginia, was born. Brown pledged his family
and his life to the destruction of bondage and white supremacy. At each
step of the way he involved African Americans in his plans. At the
Brown dinner table house Black children for the first time heard white
people refer to their parents as Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith.
John Browns raid proved that free and enslaved people of color if
given a chance would rise against bondage. It further proved that some
whites were ready to join them and fight to the death. When captured,
Brown refused any effort to save his life by pleading insanity and
turned down a rescue plan. He used the forty days between his capture
and his execution to focus national attention on slaverys evil. His last
note before his death said prophetically, I am now quite certain that
the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with
Blood.
In death Brown became a martyr to millions. Garibaldi called him a
Jesus. Victor Hugo called him an apostle and a hero, and on behalf
of citizens of France gave his family a John Brown medal. America
has been hanged in John Brown, wrote a Polish patriot. Black people
declared a Martyrs Day and in slave Baltimore placed his picture on
their walls. Henry David Thoreau said, He taught us how to live and
abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison said, He told us what time of day
it was, it was high noon. Frederick Douglass said, John Brown began
the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.

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Sixteen months after Brown was hanged, slaveholders began a civil


war that took 600,000 lives. Before it was over 200,000 African
Americans served in the Union Army and Navy, and in 39 major battles
they turned the tide against the Confederacy. Black troops carried the
message of Gabriel, Turner and Brown as they liberated their sisters
and brothers.
During the John Brown program at the Schomburg Center, a Haitian
American asked me why Haiti has a John Brown Boulevard, and the
United States does not. He raised a very important question.
More articles and information about William Loren Katz 40 books and
lectures.

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During his sentencing, on November 2, 1859 John Brown made the


following statement:

I have, may it please the court, a few words to say.


In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along
admitted, -- the design on my part to free slaves. I intended
certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did
last winter, when I went into Missouri and took slaves
without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them
through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I
designed to do the same thing again, on a larger scale. That
was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or
the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to
rebellion, or to make insurrection.

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I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should


suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I
admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire
the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the
witnesses who have testified in this case), -- had I so
interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent,
the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends -either father, mother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that
class -- and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this
interference, it would have been all right; and every man in
this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward
rather than punishment.
The court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law
of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the
Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all
things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should
do even so to them. It teaches me further to "remember them
that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act
up to that instruction. I say, I am too young to understand
that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have
interfered as I have done -- as I have always freely admitted I
have done -- in behalf of His despied poor, was not wrong,
but right. Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit
my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle
my blood further with the blood of my children and with the
blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are
disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments. -- I
submit; so let it be done!
Let me say one word further.
I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on

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my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more


generous than I expected. I feel no consciousness of my guilt.
I have stated from the first what was my intention, and what
was not. I never had any design against the life of any
person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite
slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never
encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any
idea of any kind.
Let me say also, a word in regard to the statements made by
some to those conncected with me. I hear it has been said by
some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the
contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as
regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined
me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their
own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a
word of conversation with, till the day they came to me; and
that was for the purpose I have stated.
Now I have done.

SOURCE: Based on materials of Annals of America. 1968,1976


Encyclopedia Brittanica, Inc. and William Loren Katz
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