John Brown and His Men Struck a Blow for Freedom
The revolutionary and anti-racist racist John Brown is celebrated by many across the country for his attempts to end slavery. He is often more credited with starting the Civil War than the firing on the Fort Sumpter. At Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, Brown and his nineteen men, including five escaped Black slaves were killed. Their long war initially began against Missouri slave owners in Kansas and Missouri. His attacks led to the southern slave owning states calling up racist militias to defend slavery and to the eventual secession articles each one passed that began the Civil War. John Brown was a white abolitionist who believed pro-slavers should pay horribly for the sins of owning human beings. He was also a conductor of the Underground Railroad helping many slaves secure their freedom and organizer of a self-defense unit for freed blacks and fugitive slaves.
In October of 1859 John Brown led a small army of fighters to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in an effort to free enslaved Black people. His plan was to seize the armory and use it to arm local Blacks, head south, drawing off more and more slaves from different plantations. The raid went well at first, but news of the raid spread fast and before long a group of white racist militia seized the bridge which was the only escape route. The surrounding troops stormed the armory and captured Brown’s remaining troops. These men were martyrs in the war against racism and slavery. In his small band of fighters were the Black men Lewis Sheridan Leary, Dangerfield Newby (one of the first to be killed by the racists), John Anthony Copeland Jr., and Shields Green.
Racist southern historians tried to characterize John Brown as being “crazy.” This was done to create the myth that all whites had to believe in white supremacy. Anyone who observed John Brown knew he was not insane but passionate about ending slavery. The raid on Harper’s Ferry was supposed to include Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, but Tubman fell ill on the day the freedom fighters departed for their target. Frederick Douglass, the great Black abolitionist, thought the plan was doomed but praised John Brown for being more courageous than himself by saying, “But the question is, Did John Brown fail? He certainly did fail to get out of Harpers Ferry before being beaten down by United States soldiers; he did fail to save his own life, and to lead a liberating army into the mountains of Virginia. But he did not go to Harpers Ferry to save his life.” Frederick Douglass went on to say, “John Brown’s zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. . . . I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him.”
John Brown and his men would be killed, and in the case of the Black freedom fighter named Dangerfield Newby, he was shot through the neck and his body fed to hogs. On Nov. 2, Brown was convicted of all charges. The white jury deliberated 45 minutes before sentencing him to death by hanging. He was executed on charges of treason, murder and insurrection on December 2, 1859. The killing the terrorists of the slave owning class can not be described as murder but as a blow for freedom. There can be no treason against a government that supports the enslavement of human beings. The racists who witnessed the hanging of John Brown were Robert E. Lee and John Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Lincoln.
