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last week i attended the naacp ceremony in charlestown wva marking the 150th anniversary of hanging john brown. i got there early enough to mingle with reenactors portraying citizens and soldiers-i have to say they were in us uniforms it might have been better to have virginia militia uniforns. anyway the wagon wasnt the same but they did have a coffin in back. they proceeded from the back of the courtouse where the trial was held to the front where 200 or so people waited in the street.behind a microphone set up a man read the verdict and then dick gregory spoke saying the implications pf what happened here would not be understood for another 150 years,i thought at first what?but he actually was probally right. they had an actor portraying j.b he came out the front door of the c.h.his wife [played by his real life wife]says goodbye and surrounded on both sides he was escorted to the wagon,sits down on the coffin and away they went to the hanging site a few blocks away,once fields now a nice neihborhood where people had erected a scaffold- alittle smaller but otherwise exact. i have to say i was shocked at this but very interesting. once there more speeches,john brown spoke his words,and then the trap door came down. i was wondering if they would do some acting on the gallows but brown/actor never went up the steps,anyway it all ended with people singing the battle hymn of the republic and a lone trumpeter playing a dirge. the press was there and browns great=great-great grand daughter spoke,i talked to her and two of the raiders decendant-the coppac’s- very nice ladies. i went for the event, for i believe it was a step towards disunion and once again i was suprised at how many people think he was a hero.all the speeches talked glowingly of brown and sidestepped any issues of his killings.anyway i plan to be at all the events of the 150th anniver. which were turning points in the war-next is lincolns cooper union speech nxt febuary,the speech that helped make him president. kevin a kearns
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My first reaction to this is pure unmitigated revulsion.
My second reaction is a deep seated fear for my people, my family and my Country.
john brown was very simply and undeniably a terrorist. Anyone who deliberately murders innocents is a terrorist regardless of the way he or anyone else feels about the justice of his cause. How can “my government” and “my countrymen” justify trying and punishing the people that helped plan and carry out the murder nearly 3000 innocent Americans on 9-11 while glorifying brown and his dirty henchmen? How can we execute the likes of Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVey , Saddam Hussein or even Osama Bin Laden while we glorify American Terrorists that we may happen to agree with? Remember all the people we call terrorists are just as sincere and just as convinced of the justice of their cause as brown and other “americans” (both past and present) were/are.
My third reaction to this sorry episode is (for the first time in my life) a profound shame to be an American
I can totally see your point Kevin, as well as yours Macreverie.
Thousands died in the name of freedom, some from choice and others not. The question is if freedom would have been achieved other wise? I do not have an answer for that. I think history should be told as it happened, no glorification needed. John brown was the start of a chain of events leading to the abolition of slavery, which is a good thing, though the path he chose to walk, was a terrible one. Macreverie - you words are very strong and deserving of contemplation.
"The question is if freedom would have been achieved other wise?"
Almost every other nation in the western world ended slavery without a war. Cuba abolished slavery in 1886, Brazil in 1888. Were they just more civilized than Americans? I don’t think so.
The undeniable truth is that slavery would have ended in the US without a war. The end of slavery was an incidental effect of the war NOT the reason for the war!