“Remembering and honoring John Brown”
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
While scrolling through my Bluesky feed yesterday I saw this post:
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“had I ... interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends ... or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have ... every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward”
— John Brown
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— micchiato 🍉 (@micchiato.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Today was the day, in 1859 that abolitionist John Brown was put to death.
From West Virginia Public Broadcasting:
December 2, 1859: John Brown Hanged For Raid on Harper's Ferry
On December 2, 1859, abolitionist John Brown was hanged in Charles Town for treason for his raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry six weeks earlier. While Brown’s raid had failed miserably, his capture and hanging had a much greater impact on national events. Brown’s actions set off shockwaves across the country. In the North, many hailed him as a hero. In the South, he was viewed as a villain and a true reflection of the North’s intended war on slavery.
Tensions mounted in the days leading up to Brown’s execution. Rumors of a massive jailbreak circulated in both the North and South. The jail and gallows were guarded by Virginia troops, including Major Thomas Jackson—later to be known as “Stonewall.”
As Brown was brought to the gallows, he handed off a note that read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood.” Perhaps more than any other event, Brown’s death hastened a cascade of events that culminated with the first shots of the Civil War 16 months later.
I grew up knowing his name, which was mentioned with reverence and respect by my white grandmother and Black grandfather who were from Kansas, but couldn’t be married there. Even though the state had no law against it — the clerk in Topeka wouldn’t marry them. So though enslavement was ended by the civil war, racism wasn’t, which we see clearly today with an openly racist President installed in the White House, and his racist minions doing their best to revive pre civil war policies and practices towards us Black folks. Though Brown was born in Connecticut on May 9, 1800, and hanged in Virginia on December 2, 1859, his final resting place is in upstate New York, which many folks are unaware of.
John Brown Farm State Historic Site
High in New York State's Adirondack Mountains is the home and grave of abolitionist John Brown. Many Americans know the song "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave," but most do not associate the words with this simple farm at North Elba, New York.
On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown and his followers assaulted the U.S. Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, planning to use the captured arms in an extensive campaign for the liberation of the slaves in the South. Brown was captured on October 18, 1859, imprisoned at Charlestown, Virginia, tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and hanged on December 2, 1859. His body was returned to North Elba and was buried in front of his home on December 8, 1859. The remains of several of Brown's followers, who fought and died at Harper's Ferry, were moved to this small graveyard in 1899.
Brown's final prophesy--"I, John Brown, am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done,"--was soon to be realized in the Civil War.
When I decided to write about Brown today, I looked to see what the internet had to offer — and in my searching came across this post on Medium from 2023 written by Nwenna Kai:
John Brown, the real White Ally
Many do not know the story of John Brown, the White abolitionist who grew up in a family that had strong and radical anti-slavery views. He was a White man who died for the lives of enslaved Black people and because of that he should be a model for White people who claim they want to ally with Black people.
Now, I’m not asking White people to ally with Black people. I err on the side of the film, Malcolm, when the White college student approached Denzel Washington who played the role of Malcolm X and asked him, “What could White people do to help Black people in the struggle?”, in which Malcolm replied, “Nothing”. I’m not sure if Malcolm X actually replied in this way in his real life or if he was even approached by the student, but I’m not someone who is asking for White people to ally with Black people in the first place.
I first started to really hear the word “ally” a lot after the murder of George Floyd. After his murder the perceptions of a racial lens began to shift for all people all over the world. It seemed as though people began to empathize with Black people’s experience with systemic racism and oppression from many different angles. It also seemed as though many companies, businesses, organizations, higher educational institutions, The President, public figures, etc, issued these well constructed politically correct statements confirming how they stand with Black folks, blah, blah, blah….
In academia, I also started to hear White professors and administrators say how they wanted to be a “good White person” or they wanted “to ally with Black folks”.
But I always wondered what the hell did that mean (this idea of allyship) because White people’s perceptions of allying with Black people would look completely different from most Black people’s interpretation of allying with Black folks.
So this is why I say John Brown is an ideal model for White allies to study his life, his actions, his bravery, his courage, and his upbringing.
During his life, Brown held secret anti-slavery conventions in Canada and he even wrote an anti-slavery constitution. Towards the end of his life, he led a daring raid on Harper’s Ferry in Virginia by capturing very prominent citizens and seizing an arsenal and the armory. His dream was to seize weapons and distribute them to freedom fighters and enslaved people around the country. Unfortunately, that dream died. He was captured, charged with treason and murder, and was hanged on December 2nd, 1859.
And Brown’s last words were, “I, John Brown, am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.”
So, John Brown knew that to eradicate slavery, there would need to be bloodshed.
Do White allies today think the same? Do they know that they must put skin in the game in order to really ally with Black folks. So I would encourage White allies to study John Brown, to see how allying with Black folks would look like and to compare their notes with Black people who are steeped in Black culture and history to see where perhaps there is some alignment between the two perceptions.
I hope more folks will give her a read.
I live in New York State. Rarely mentioned is that we have an entire State Park, where Brown and his family lived, and where he is buried:
“John Brown Lives New York State Park”
There are statues of Brown in a variety of locations across the U.S (see wiki)
Sadly, this one in Kansas City has been vandalized:
I dove into YouTube and discovered a variety of histories/biographies. Here are a few of them:
The stage: the town of Alton in southern Illinois. The date of the act committed: the 7th of November, 1837. On that Tuesday, an angry mob murdered Elijah Lovejoy, the Presbyterian minister who was the founder of the Illinois State Anti-Slave Society. Two days later, some 500 miles east in Hudson Ohio, a church congregation held a memorial service to honor the murdered activist. Owen Brown opened the gathering with a long, tearful prayer. At its conclusion, there was a long silence. Then, in the back, Owen Brown’s son rose and, stiffly, raised his right hand, then vowed, “Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.” It was 37-year-old John Brown’s first public statement on the inflammatory issue and, as time would tell, his message and actions would be ominous. And yet, on that Tuesday and in that service, this was John Brown of Hudson, Ohio. It would take time and events to fully create the John Brown of “Bleeding” Kansas and Harpers Ferry. From crusader to Old Testament avenging angel, this is his story.
Narrated by Fred Kiger
John Brown is one of the most controversial figures in American History. His Raid on Harper's Ferry has been pointed to as the starting point of the Civil War. In this documentary, I dive into the life and times of John Brown to better understand his motivations later in life. In this episode, Brown death sparks an anti-slavery upheaval in the north and sets the course for Civil War
“John Brown’s Last Speech Performed by David Strathairn”
The National Park Service still has this information posted about
John Brown and Harriet Tubman
John Brown and Harriet Tubman met for the first time in April of 1858 in St. Catherines, on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Brown, awestruck at meeting Tubman, dubbed her “General” Tubman and referred to her as "one of the best and bravest persons on the continent."
Tubman felt that she had already met John Brown in a dream. W.E.B Du Bois wrote in his biography of Tubman that she “laid great stress on a dream which she had had just before she met Captain Brown in Canada… [in her dream] she saw a serpent raise its head among the rocks, and as it did so, it became the head of an old man with a long white beard, gazing at her ‘wishful like’ …and then two other heads rose up beside him, younger than he … a great crowd of men rushed in and struck down the younger heads, and then the head of the old man, still looking at her so ‘wishful!’ This dream she had again and again and could not interpret it; but when she met Captain Brown, shortly after, behold he was the very image of the head she had seen.”
Tubman assisted with raid planning by drawing on her geographical knowledge of clandestine activities and resources in the Mid-Atlantic region as well as recruiting formerly enslaved people in Canada to support the cause. Tubman fell ill and couldn’t join Brown in the raid on Harpers Ferry.
Tubman's recurring prophetic visions about John Brown seemed to prove true. John Brown’s raid ultimately ended with all but five raiders captured or killed. A great crowd struck down Brown’s sons, Oliver and Watson, who were killed in the raid (represented in Tubman’s dream as the two heads). Virginia came for the head of the bearded man in her dream, John Brown, putting him on trial for treason, murder and inciting a slave rebellion. Brown was found guilty and executed six weeks later.
“General” Tubman continued leading enslaved people to freedom as a conductor of Underground Railroad--personally rescuing about 70 people in 13 trips and assisting many more to freedom. She was a spy for the Union army and lived to see the end of slavery in the United States.
“Harriet Tubman on John Brown - Summit County Historical Society”
There was also a relationship between Brown and Frederick Douglass. Tim Ott wrote for Biography:
John Brown and Frederick Douglass Had a Complicated Friendship
Formerly enslaved Douglass was inspired by the white abolitionist’s passion, but they often butted heads, including over the raid at Harpers Ferry.
The inaugural meeting of two of the 19th century's most famous abolitionists, Frederick Douglass and John Brown, took place at Brown's home in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1847.
Douglass was already widely known for his enslaved upbringing and escape from captivity in the late 1830s, his account captured in 1845's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and frequently rehashed in his public speeches.
Yet it was Brown, a white man with a record of failed business interests and unyielding religious conviction, who seemingly came off as the one more determined to end the cruel institution of slavery that day.
Brown impressed Douglass with an early plan to free the enslaved
As he recalled in 1881's Life and times of Frederick Douglass, Brown immediately impressed his guest with his "lean, strong and sinewy build" and the way "his children observed him with reverence."
But it was Brown's impassioned words that made the biggest mark, as he spoke of a plan to free the enslaved and squirrel them to freedom through the Alleghany Mountains.
His measured responses to Douglass' questions showed he had given the matter careful thought. Armed men would be stationed at strategic checkpoints, he explained, from where they would slip down to towns to rally the enslaved and acquire provisions. And even if authorities managed to corner them, what better way to die than for such a noble cause?
Douglass was then a proponent of William Lloyd Garrison's "non-resistance" form of abolitionism, but he began to reassess his beliefs after the night at Brown's home. "While I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the same less hopeful of its peaceful abolition," he wrote. "My utterances became more and more tinged by the color of this man's strong impressions."
Douglass frequently hosted Brown at his New York home
By the mid-1850s, Brown had become a national figure in his own right for his involvement in the violent "Bleeding Kansas" border conflicts, his actions celebrated by those who felt that slavery would only end through bloodshed. "I met him often during this struggle," Douglass wrote, "and all I saw of him gave me a more favorable impression of the man, and inspired me with a higher respect for his character."
The Anti-social studies video channel explores this relationship.
“Deep Dive: FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND JOHN BROWN (Emily teaches US History)”
I’ll close with Paul Robeson’s powerful rendition of “John Brown’s Body” — a song that has it’s own history. From Historian Chandra Manning at Teaching History:
The song, “John Brown’s Body,” consists of tune and words. And often times in the 19th century, new words got set to familiar tunes because it was an easy way to learn songs. So the tune to “John Brown’s Body” had been around for a while.
“John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, But, His soul is marching on. Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Glory, Glory Hallelujah! His soul is marching on.”
The words to “John Brown’s Body” went through several different variations. The original John Brown that it’s singing of was not even the John Brown that we think of—John Brown, the anti-slavery figure. He was a soldier in the Union Army in a Massachusetts regiment who had the name John Brown and the song was initially a way for his fellow soldiers to tease him. But the song caught on and passed beyond his regiment. When other regiments sang the song “John Brown’s Body,” they probably had no idea that there was a Massachusetts soldier named John Brown.
They thought they were singing about John Brown, the anti-slavery figure. And the words, again, they changed and they evolved over the course of the war. Different groups would add different verses that fit their experiences. And what makes this song so interesting to me is that the image of John Brown, the anti-slavery figure, did the same thing. It changed so much over time and also varied depending on who you ask. So different groups would ascribe certain characteristics just like different soldiers would add different lyric
It becomes one of the Union Army’s favorite marching tunes. Partly because it’s quite a stirring melody and you can envision marching to this song. But also because the anti-slavery cause that John Brown came to stand for in the public mind takes on such added importance as the Civil War progresses, among Union soldiers and among the Northern public. So the popularity of the song far outstrips the popularity of John Brown. The song’s fate during the war is really quite telling about how attitudes about slavery and anti-slavery changed over time, but particularly within the war itself.
Here’s Paul Robeson’s rendition:
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Cory Booker and Alexis Lewis are officially husband and wife.
The New Jersey senator and Lewis, a director of a real estate investment firm, were married in two ceremonies: one at a courthouse in Newark, New Jersey on Monday, witnessed by their parents, and one on Saturday in Lewis’s native Washington, D.C, which was followed by a family-only reception. According to the New York Times, which covered the event, the couple had an intimate, interfaith ceremony for Booker, who is Christian, and Lewis, who is Jewish.
Booker is the first African American senator representing New Jersey, and has served in the position since 2013. He was reelected in 2020 and has filed to run again in 2026. Before coming to the U.S. Senate, he was the mayor of Newark for two terms from 2006 to 2013. Lewis works for Brasa Capital Management in Los Angeles, California, and also has experience in the public sector, working in the office of former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.
The couple was engaged in August in Hawaii and announced their plans in September. Booker wrote in the caption of a collaboration post on Instagram that he was “transformed” by his relationship with Lewis.
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A new bill will head to Congress to prevent women from being turned away or sent home from a hospital while in active labor, after a video circulated of a Black woman writhing in pain at an Indiana hospital. She was told to go home and gave birth in her truck minutes later.
Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., will announce the WELLS Act, or the Women Expansion for Learning and Labor Safety Act, on Tuesday, after Mercedes Wells gave birth to her fourth child in her car earlier this month, her office confirmed exclusively with NBC News.
Kelly’s bill would require any hospital that provides obstetric, emergency, or labor and delivery services to have a “Safe Discharge Labor Plan before discharging a patient who presents with signs or symptoms of labor.”
“Mercedes’s courage to speak out and push for change knows no bounds,” Kelly said in a statement to NBC News. “Her bravery and advocacy will help other moms receive the care and treatment they deserve.”
Wells, a mother of four, previously told NBC News that she was rushed to Franciscan Health Crown Point hospital on Nov. 16 when her contractions were 10 minutes apart — only to be sent home six hours later after a checkup by a nurse. She said she never saw a doctor. She gave birth on the side of the road eight minutes after she and her husband got into their truck.
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November is marked by offerings of marigolds to the dead in Mexico, minutes of silence to honor fallen soldiers in Britain and turkey feasts to give thanks in the United States. In Brazil it used to be just another month. Not any more: since last year Brazilians have turned it into “Black Consciousness Month”, its festivities reaching a peak with a new federal public holiday on November 20th. On that day in 1695 Portuguese colonists captured Zumbi dos Palmares, decapitated him and displayed his head in a public square. Zumbi’s crime was to have led the largest settlement for runaway slaves in history. It harbored 20,000 people at its peak and took almost a century for the Portuguese to defeat. Three hundred years after Zumbi’s murder, Brazilians are increasingly interested in their country’s African roots.
Signs of this growing interest are everywhere. Between 2010 and 2022 the number of people who claim to practice candomblé and umbanda, two Afro-Brazilian religions, tripled to almost 2m, according to census data. In 2023 more tourists in Rio de Janeiro visited “Little Africa”—a rundown neighborhood of shabby, brightly painted houses that is considered the birthplace of samba—than went to the statue of Christ the Redeemer or Sugarloaf Mountain. A new film, “Malês”, is about a big revolt led by Muslim slaves from Nigeria in 1835.
Most strikingly, Brazilians are increasingly keen to assert their African heritage. In Brazil’s most recent census, taken in 2022 and published in 2023, for the first time more people identified themselves as brown or black than white (only a tiny share identified as indigenous). In the 1940s almost two-thirds of Brazilians described themselves as white. The change is not down to demography alone, but also to decreasing stigma around being black. Today, even some affluent white Brazilians are at pains to find a black ancestor, and increasingly call themselves mixed-race.
What is remarkable about this budding interest is how belatedly it has emerged. According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, run by Rice University in Texas, 12.5m slaves were trafficked from Africa between 1500 and 1866. Of the 11m who survived the voyage, some 5m disembarked in Brazil, compared with around 400,000 in the United States (see chart). Each of Brazil’s economic booms, including sugar, gold, cotton and coffee, depended on slave labour. Ina von Binzer, a German governess who worked for wealthy families in Rio and São Paulo at the end of the 19th century, wrote a letter to a friend in which she noted: “In this country, the Blacks occupy the main role. They are responsible for all the labour and produce all the wealth in this land. The white Brazilian just doesn’t work.”
For a long time slave histories were overlooked, sometimes literally buried. While renovating the port area ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, workers stumbled upon broken conches, used as money and in rituals, and protective amulets. Further work identified the site as Valongo Wharf, a dock used to disembark a million Africans—making it the biggest slave port in history. The ships that docked there carried cruel names such as Charity and Happy Destination. Nearby, an inconspicuous museum opened after builders renovating a home found a mass grave. It contained the remains of tens of thousands of slaves whose bodies were unceremoniously dumped, their bones burned or cut to pieces to make space for more.
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Voices & Soul
“… it is a prayer muttered under a star-filled night sky shadowed with erratic clouds, and the point of a red road on the cold and far horizon … “ — Justice Putnam
by Black Kos Editor, Justice Putnam
One of the American Myths about Thanksgiving is how a bounty of riches was bestowed and shared, that God's goodness shone down from above and anointed all with an infinite Grace. It's nice to think so. It's nice to think that benevolence and friendship forged the Bessemer of this Nation.
If only it were true.
The truth is that this nation was forged with the white-hot ingots of conquest, genocide and slavery. A crucible of fire hotter than lava toppled, slag gouging a molten path from sea to shining sea.
I pray a special prayer at this time of year. It is a prayer of silent atonement, it is a prayer for a history forever spoken but rarely lived, and it is a prayer muttered under a star-filled night sky shadowed with erratic clouds and the point of a red road on the cold and far horizon.
I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam
and topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgive
and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam
downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you
that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find
their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific
and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive
and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon
waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia
and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors
of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River
as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives
in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.
I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after
that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws
a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire
which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told
by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon
who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us
how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours;
the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many
of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing
with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.
- Sherman Alexie
"The Powwow at the End of the World"
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