John Brown Could Die for the Slave
During the month of October we should remember John Brown and celebrate his life and legacy. One of the most important figures in the fight against slavery was a “white” man named John Brown. Though his skin and culture was “white” he was a real human being in every sense of the word, for he totally rejected white supremacy and slavery. He is most widely known for his brave armed attack on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1859. This attack, an armed rebellion, was aimed at the savage institution of slavery and went down in history as the shot that started the Civil War and not just the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. After John Brown’s attack at Harpers Ferry racist slave owners and white supremacists began arming and mobilizing white militias and howling for leaving the Union and creating a separate slave owner country in the South.
John Brown’s legacy and deeds would prompt the formation of the NAACP and mold the idea that the horrible institution of slavery, against the lazy plantation owners, could not be ended except by violence and Civil War. In The North Star abolitionist newspaper, Douglass said of John Brown that, “His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine is as the candlelight, his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slaves. John Brown could die for them.” Perhaps the Pastor of Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, Rev. C. Ransom, gave the best speech on the death of John Brown.
Ransom delivered a speech titled, “The Spirit of John Brown.” In referencing the criticism that John Brown was “crazy” Ransom said, “Such insanity was required to arouse the nation against the crime of slavery.” Slaves and African Americans did not think him crazy, nor did anyone who knew him, for he struck a blow against the inhuman brutal system of slavery and the psychotic laws that upheld slavery in America. The real craziness was the institution of slavery and the crazy ideas of white supremacy. On November 7, 1837, newspaper editor and Journalist, Elijah Parish Lovejoy a Presbyterian Minister, was murdered by a racist mob for his abolitionist views. In response to the Lovejoy murder Brown publicly vowed before a meeting of abolitionists, “Here before God and in front of these witnesses, from this time on I consecrate my life to the destruction of Slavery!”
At the trial of John Brown he turned the tables against the pro-slavery court and said, “If I had interfered on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or any of their friends, parents, wives, or children, it would all have been right. But I believe that to have interfered as I have done for the despised poor, was not wrong, but right.” John Brown stood firm against slavery and defiant against the slave owners to the end. He was sentenced to be hanged but verbally slapped the lazy cowards of the pro-slavery movements with this, “I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood . . . 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.”
