On The 155th Anniversary Of The Heroic Captain John Brown-Led Fight For Black Liberation At Harper’s Ferry-Josh Breslin’s Dream
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
I remember a few years ago my friend and I, Josh Breslin, from the old working- class neighborhoods of North Adamsville, a town south of Boston, were discussing the historical events that helped form our political understandings back in the early 1960 since we were, and are, both political men driven by historical examples as much as by the minutia of organizing principles. And while we have diverged on many of the influences since then as we have a fair degree of differences on the way to change the world and what agencies can do that (basically working within the current political system or moving over to the base of society and organizing from the ground up within or outside of the system depending on circumstance) we both agreed whole-heartedly that one of our early heroes was old Captain John Brown and his heroic efforts with his small integrated band of men at Harper’s Ferry down in what is now West Virginia but the just Virginia, a slave-holders stronghold. As we discussed the matter more fully we found we were hard pressed to explain what first captured our attention and agreed that then would have not had the political sense then to call Brown’s actions heroic although we both understood that what he did was necessary.
See, coming up in a mainly Irish working-class neighborhood we were always aware, made particularly aware by grandfathers who had kindred over there in those days, of that heroic struggle in Easter 1916 that was the precursor to the long sought national liberation of Ireland from the bloody British. So when we first studied, or heard about John Brown we instinctively saw that same kind of struggle. Both of us also agreed that we had had back then very strong feelings about the wrongness of slavery, a wretched system going back to Pharaoh’s time if not before, although Josh was more ambivalent about the fate of black people after Civil War freedom than I was since there was in his household a stronger current of anti-black feeling around the civil rights work down south in those days than in mine. (Strangely my father, who was nothing but a corn liquor, fast car, ex-coal miner good old boy from down in Kentucky was more sympathetic to that struggle that Josh’s Irish grandfather whom Josh could never get to call black people anything better than “nigras.” At least we got my father to say “Negro.” Jesus.)
A couple of week after that conversation Josh called me up from California one night where he was attending a professional conference near San Jose and told me that he forgot to tell me about what he called a “dream” he had had as a kid concerning his admiration for John Brown. Of course that “dream” stuff was just Josh’s way of saying that he had sketched out a few thoughts that he wanted to share with me (and which will undoubtedly find their into a commentary or review or something because very little of Josh’s “dream” stuff fails to go to ink or cyberspace). Some of it is now hazy in my mind since the hour was late here in the East, and some of it probably was really based on stuff we had learned later about the Brown expedition like how Boston Brahmins and high abolitionists like George Stearns secretly funded the operation or Brown’s attempts to get Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Tubman on board (neither name which we would have known very much about then), and some of the stuff was probably a little goofy since it involved Josh in some hero worship. Since he will inevitably write something on his own he can make any corrections to what I put down here himself. Know this though whenever I hear the name John Brown mentioned lately I think about Josh’s telephone call and about how the “old man” has held our esteem for so long. Here is what I jotted down, edited of course, after that conversation:
From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and
was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harper’s Ferry. I would
say that was in about the sixth grade when I went to the library and read about
Abraham Lincoln before he became president and how he didn’t like what John
Brown did because he knew that that action was going to drive the South crazy
and upset the delicate balance that was holding the Union together. Frank
though thinks it was the seventh grade when we were learning about the slavery
issues as part of the 100th anniversary of the start of the American
Civil War and his name came up as a “wild man” out of some Jehovah Calvinist
burning bush dream who was single-handedly trying to abolish slavery with that
uprising. Was ready to “light the spark” to put out the terrible scourge of
slavery in the land with some spilled blood. That slavery business, if you can
believe this really bothered both of us, especially when we went to a museum
that showed the treatment of slaves and the implements used to enforce that
condition down South. And I remember one time going to the Museum of Fine Arts
and saw how old Pharaoh used his slaves to build those damn pyramids to
immortalize himself. Yeah, the hell with slavery, any kind.
I think I am right thought about when I first heard about
the “old man” because I know I loved Lincoln, loved to read about him, loved
that back then we celebrated his birthday, February 12th, and we got
the day off from school. Loved that Lincoln was basically forced at the governmental
level to implement Brown’s program to root out slavery once the deal went down
and he was merciless about its extermination once he got “religion” on the
matter. Of course neither I nor Frank would have articulated our thoughts that
way then but we knew “Massa Lincoln” was on the right side of the angels in his
work as much as he hated to burn down the South in the process. But there was
no other way to get the damn issue resolved and I think that is what he learned
from the Captain whether he gave credit to the man or not. By the way this I do
know that while we celebrated Lincoln’s birthday in the North as the great
emancipator and Union-saver Frank once told me a story about one of his cousins
down south and how when he mentioned that he had Lincoln’s birthday off that
cousin said “we don’t celebrate that
man’s birthday down here,’’ in such a way that Frank began to understand
that maybe the Civil War was not over. That some people had not gotten the word)
I knew other stuff back then too which added to my feel for
the Brown legend. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a
prior existence as John Brown’s Body,
a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they
bravely headed south. Funny but back then I was totally unaware of the role of
the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first black regiment raised
although with white officers when Father Abraham gave the word, whose survivors
and replacements marched into Charleston, South Carolina, the heart and soul of
the Confederacy, after the bloody Civil War to the tune of John Brown’s Body. That must have been a righteous day. Not so
righteous though and reflecting a very narrow view of history that we were
taught back then kind of fudging the very serious differences back in Civil War
times even in high abolitionist Boston was not knowing thing number one about
Augustus Saint-Gauden’s commemorative frieze honoring the men of the 54th
right across from the State House which I passed frequently when I went on to
Boston Common.
I was then, however, other than aware of the general
narrative of Brown’s exploits and a couple of songs and poems neither familiar
with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much
about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the ante
bellum struggle against slavery of which he represented the extreme activist
left-wing. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior
military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery.
Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong
bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was
executed I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the
turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in
the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Some 150 years after his
death I am proud to stand in the tradition of John Brown. [And I am too,
brother!-Frank]
If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth,
of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge
of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only
conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As various biographies point
out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early
service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves
northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery
propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery
elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the
‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life- the raid on
Harper’s Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by
those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it and their latter-day
apologists for the institution about his so-called ‘madness’. This is a
political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.
For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly,
it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. Like them without
warts and with a discernible thrust from early adulthood that leads to some
heroic action. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would
hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in
any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions
in Kansas (concerning allegations of the murder of some pro-slavery elements
under his direction) have also clouded his image. However if one looks at
Kansas as the start of the Civil War then all the horrible possibilities under
the heat of battle mitigate some of that incident although not excusing it
anymore that we would today with American soldiers in places like Afghanistan
and Iraq busting down doors and shooting first. However, when the deal went
down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no
other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the
occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call
him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like but even a slight acquaintance with great
historical figures shows that they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they
make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.
Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy
for the Harper’s Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter
of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness
of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination
of slave revolt modeled after the Maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s
earlier Virginia slave rebellion and rural guerilla warfare of the ‘third
world’ type that we have become more familiar with since that time. 150 years
later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that
had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually
uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs. The execution of
the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the
book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point
that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by
other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists,
including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with
connections to the plantations would not have hurt the chances for success at
Harper’s Ferry.
What is not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a
true Calvinist “avenging angel” in the struggle against slavery and more
importantly acted on that belief. (Strange, or maybe not so strange now, both
Frank and I who grew up upright Roman Catholics gravitated toward those
photographs of Brown with his long unkempt beard as some latter day Jehovah and
I remember Frank had a photo on the wall in his room with just such a
photograph from I think a detail of the big mural in the State House in
Kansas.) In short Brown was committed to bring justice to the black
masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It
is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well
as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist sense of pre-determination that he would
not have been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements
never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement
led by Emerson and Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported Brown and kept
his memory alive in hard times. In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the
Old Testament prophet. This old time prophet animating spirit is not one that
animates modern revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand today the
depths of his religious convictions on his actions but they were understood, if
not fully appreciated, by others in those days. It is better today to look at
Brown more politically through his hero (and mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a
combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind
that picture of him.
By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of
brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were
killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed,
including Brown. He prophetic words upon
the scaffold about purging the evil of slavery in blood proved too true. But
that demeanor in the face of defeat was very appealing to me back then. I have learned since that these results, the
imprisonments or executions are almost inevitable when one takes up a
revolutionary struggle against the old order if one is not victorious. One need
only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in
1871 when that experience was crushed in blood after heroic resistance. One can
fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others
bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar with
now there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the
defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that
galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by
history.
Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political
mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize
important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant
Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on
Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ still cannot believe that
his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or
gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such theories. Historians and
others have also misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy
that led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same
incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming
American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be
revised by some historians to take the sting out of there proper political
implications.
From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black
liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to was immediately
successful reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s
actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no
program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the American
constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone.
Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political
freedom. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the
reign of ‘Jim Crow’ and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities
changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time.
Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown,
and of his friend Frederick Douglass.
I used to fervently believe that if Douglass had come on
board as Brown had urged the chances for success would have been greater, at
least more blacks (mostly free blacks and not plantation blacks for obvious
reasons) and more radical whites who could have been mobilized as a result of
all of the events of the 1850s especially the struggle against the Fugitive
Slave Act and the struggle against the imposition of slavery in Kansas. Now I
am not so sure that Douglass’ acceptance would have qualitatively changed the
outcome. He went on to do yeoman’s work during the Civil War articulating the
left black perspective and organizing those black regiments that shifted the
outcome of the war at a decisive point. In any case honor the memory of old
Captain John Brown and his heroic band at Harper’s Ferry.
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