William Loren Katz: Black Indians/Black Pioneers

"John Brown at 200: A White Role Model

By William Loren Katz [2001]

This year marks the bicentennial of John Brown, born in 1800, and he was executed by the state of Virginia 141 years ago, on December 2, 1859. This year a PBS documentary film continued an effort that began even before his execution to sully his reputation. Why? He was a white man who gave his life fighting slavery but he did so before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He was a premature 'emancipationist.' However, two years after John Brown's death Union soldiers marched into the South singing of the man -- 'his truth goes marching on.' In the year 2000 PBS film finds no truths about Brown worth repeating. The documentary begins with a long, slow scene showing Brown being led to the gallows and ends with a long slow scene showing him being led to the gallows. This could seem like a warning to similarly inclined white people, and the public deserves better.
Brown was a devout Christian who saw slavery as violence and whose favorite Biblical quote was 'Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.' He swore his entire family to the anti-slavery struggle; led armed bands that rescued enslaved people, and was an active agent of the underground railroad. In 1856 Brown fought slaveholders' fire with rifle fire in the Kansas Civil War. He was not a man to be trifled with. When President James Buchanan offered a $250 reward for Brown's capture, he offered $2.50 for Buchanan's. "


John Brown