Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.”
Another thank you going out to one of my fabulous #FineArtAmerica clients, this from Bowie, Maryland (my old stomping grounds when I was a kid!) for their 10/19 purchase of a 24" x 16" luster photo paper print of Patterns of Shadow and Light. Enjoy!!!!!
Abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 other men, five black and sixteen white, in a raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. They had hoped to set off a slave revolt — throughout the south — with the weapons they had planned to seize.
Virtually all his compatriots were killed or captured by General Robert E. Lee’s troops; Brown was wounded and arrested, and hanged for treason within two months.
Today in Labor History October 16, 1859: Abolitionist John Brown led his famous raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in order to obtain weapons to defeat the forces of slavery. The raid failed and Brown was executed. Brown was an Evangelical Christian who believed he was "an instrument of God", raised to strike the "death blow" to American slavery.
Unlike some others, Harriet Tubman did not believe the abolitionist John Brown was crazy. Indeed, she had deep respect for Brown and supported his militant approach to the abolition of slavery, something that was somewhat uncommon at that time when many anti-slavery agitators were advocating for a more pacifist approach.
Today in Labor History August 15, 1906: W.E.B. DuBois demanded equal citizenship rights for African-Americans during the second meeting of the Niagara Movement, saying, "We will not be satisfied to take one jot or little less than our full manhood." Founders of the movement named it for the “mighty current” of change they hoped to achieve. DuBois made his famous statement at Harper’s Ferry, sight of the failed insurrection led by John Brown, in 1859. For a wonderful speculative fiction story based on the premise that John Brown had succeeded in his raid, with the help of Harriet Tubman, read Terry Bisson’s “Fire on the Mountain” (1988).
In addition to cofounding the Niagara Movement, DuBois also cofounded the NAACP. He devoted his life to fighting racism, segregation, Jim Crow and lynchings. DuBois opposed capitalism and blamed it for much of the racism in America. He was also a prolific writer, an anti-nuclear and peace activist, and a proponent of Pan-Africanism.
A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore; and with modern trope status in literature, art and films.
It has changed my personal stance on the need for guns. This isn't a popular opinion among most progressives. I have listened to the #trans people & #BIPOC who fear for their lives.
John Brown & Unions are the keys to busting the MAGA fascist bubble. They're not magic, but these are the themes that we can sell to Americans about a better America that their ancestors lived and died for.
John Brown was a fundamentalist Calvinist, who lived and died for equality. He is a key example of progressive Christians who would be called Social Justice Warriors by the Right.
Unions (& the New Deal) were THE key for bringing Americans out of the Great Depression.
Coal miners getting killed for wanting enough pay that their children wouldn't starve is the image.
@eberhofer I made a John Brown-like resolve on that day to fight White Christian Nationalism, by any means neccessary.
If John Brown was alive today, the decades period that he fought slavery before taking up arms would've involved the Fediverse & online forums. He would've used it to organize the underground railroad and communicate with independent cells of resistance.
The other way is to take the info and stories from the Fediverse into other online spaces. That Christian flag pic was my first post in a thread about "White Christian Nationalists & other US Fascists". I started that thread on a General Discussion board of a Southern jam band, that I have been on for 15 years.
That was 2 years and about 1,000 posts ago. Others have joined in to link to relevant news stories about the rising fascism. IMO, that unrelated connection of music & a band makes a difference in piercing the bubble.