News
May 4, 2009
JOHN BROWN DAY LAUNCHES 150TH COMMEMORATION
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. --- Two-thousand and nine marks the 150th anniversary of abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and his subsequent trial and execution. The annual John Brown Day Celebration on May 8th-9th will launch a yearlong commemoration of Brown, whose raid on Harper’s Ferry set the nation on a path to Civil War.
In this year that marks the election of the first African-American as president, Brown’s determined effort to tear down the institution of slavery that held over 4 million in bondage has special meaning and is drawing special attention as historians re-examine his life, his actions, the repercussions and the many rumors and circumstances that surround this most controversial figure that changed the destiny of our nation.
LAKE PLACID NEWS Thursday November 19, 2009
Looking
at Slavery
Keene Central School, Keene Valley, NY. ‘“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood”, were the last words that John Brown wrote, about ten minutes before he was led from his jail out to the gallows where he was hung until he was dead,” said actor Fred Morsell Tuesday morning to over 120 students gathered together at the Keene Central School to begin a journey into an exploration of slavery, the cause that John Brown and so many others died to end.
Morsell was dressed as famed 19th century former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Not a student twitched as they hung on every word.
“How many here think slavery is over, that it has ended?” he asked switching to his twentieth century self.
One hand rose.
“How many think that slavery still exists in the world?”
Most of the hands shot up.
“You are right, it still does. This man, who gave his life to end slavery named John Brown, lies buried in North Elba, you know where North Elba is?”
“Yes,” they answer. And so began a journey into looking the destructive impact of slavery on the slave and the slaver, on society that took students from four schools into the life and experiences of Frederick Douglass, born a slave, self taught how to read, and escaped to freedom when yet twenty who went on to become one of the nation’s finest orators and statesmen.
“We are here to explore to explore the history that exists in our own back yard,” said Martha Swan, a teacher at Newcomb school and the director of John Brown Lives! earlier when she introduced Morsell. “We are home to some very ordinary people that did very extraordinary things. John Brown was one of them. This fall and through an upcoming symposium in December there will be a lot of events that will explore the legacy of John Brown, events that will bring many adults together to discuss the meaning of his life. This event is for you; it is for young people because you are the heart of this journey. Does anybody know why I feel that you young people are the heart of this exploration into slavery?”
“To help you decide whether you are going to make a good choice on behalf of other people?” asked one.
“Exactly right,” said Martha Swan. “It is to help you think about the difficult choices we often have to make. We will be exploring those questions again in your school beginning right after you come back from Thanksgiving vacation. We will bring artists into your schools to help you examine the meaning of slavery and the choices this one man, John Brown, made. I want you to be prepared to be engaged, be prepared to ask questions. We will then come back together on December 4th to share with each other the results of your artistic explorations into the meaning of slavery.”
“No child should ever have to go through what I went through,” said Fred Morsell as Douglass. He went on to describe Douglass’ life as a young man, the abrupt separation from his mother, who would have to walk twelve miles through the night just to watch him sleep before walking back to her plantation, the anguish of the separation from his grandmother who had raised him, and the attempts to break his spirit during four years of hard labor and the lash. He painted a vivid portrait, and then went on to discuss the impact of slavery on society itself.
“The slave and the slave master is a victim of slavery,” he quoted Douglass. “The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property is safe."
“What started slavery,” asked a student during the concluding question and answer period.
“Let me step out of my role, and answer that question not in his words, because I do not know that, but in what I have come to believe. I think that slavery starts when someone wants to get something for nothing, when someone doesn’t want to work for something. I think it starts with selfishness. That may seem a very simple answer, but I think it is the correct one.”
“Who is the real you, is it that person you see in the mirror when you first wake up, or that person that you see all dressed up and looking your finest. The real you is the person you cannot see in a mirror. It is the person inside here,” said Morsell tapping his chest. “It is in your heart. A person’s real value comes from their heart. It comes from inside here. The voice from your heart never lies. It always tells the truth.”
“It was an excellent performance,” said Connie O’Dell, a teachers aid from Crown Point. “He had the students attention the entire time.”
“We was very engaging,” said Sadie Fosco, a Crown Point student.
“It was awesome,” said her classmate Hunter Spauling. “His presentation was very exciting. I like it when he switched from being in character to when he spoke as himself.”
“What did you learn about slavery?”
“It was horrible,” said Sadie.
"How many people do you think live in slavery in the United States today?”
“1,000?” said Sadie.
“50,000.”
“Really, that’s a lot of people.”
“How many word-wide?
“Over a million?”
“More.”
“50 million?” said Hunter.
“Closer, over 27 million.”
“I want students to be involved,” said Martha Swan. “I want students to have a chance to constructively think about and engage with the history that exists in their own back yard that helped determine the nation we will become. In December the students will come back together to present to one another what this experience has caused the think about, as that young women expressed, the choices we have.”
On December 4th the students will meet Maria Suarez, a women who has lived in slavery in our time, in our country, and Kevin Bales, whose goal is to end slavery in this country and worldwide in his lifetime, two of the presenters at the John Brown 150th Commemoration symposium.
a presentation by historian Zoe Trodd
John Brown’s Spirit Marches On
Lake Placid, NY -- “I hear John Brown every time I realize that we have it within our power to end slavery for good – that this means the end of suffering for millions, and it means a watershed for humanity, a moment when we finally reject the great lie, that some humans are sub-human, and embrace the great truth, that we are one people,” said historian Zoe Trodd referring to the more than 27 million people who live in bondage today throughout the world, 50,000 in the United States. “It is the lie that Brown took up arms to defeat, and the truth that he died for.”
Over 50 people chose to spend their Saturday afternoon at the John Brown Farm State Park to attend the first of a succession of events that will be presented by local cultural and historical organizations to commemorate the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, trial, death and journey home to be buried at his farm located outside the village of Lake Placid; events that will culminate in a memorial service at the moment of his burial, 11:00 a.m., December 8.
“We are trying to lift up for celebration and examination John Brown, his family and the raiders, one quarter of whom were from this village, who tried to right the terrible wrong that was perpetuated by our country on the millions who suffered in slavery,” said Martha Swan, director of John Brown Lives!, the organizer Trodd’s presentation.
“I think there is nothing more exciting than to be here, at John Brown’s farm, near his grave, exactly 150 years this month from when he raided Harper’s Ferry and began his path to martyrdom which would take him from the Ferry to Charlestown jail, to the gallows, and then back here to Lake Placid.” said Trodd. “Just 6 days from now, on October 16, 1859, Brown raided Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, with his band of 21 black and white men. He believed that slavery was an existing war of white Southerners against black people. He said he took up “defensive arms” within that war. He captured the town and its federal arsenal, intending that slaves in the area arm themselves and rise up to claim their freedom, escape to the mountains and form a slave-free nation.”
“On the morning of his execution Brown handed a letter to one of his prison guards. It was very short, just two sentences. It read, “I John Brown am now 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 much bloodshed; it might be done.” Here the word “Blood” referred to the bloodshed of his raid, of his execution, and of the conflict over slavery that Brown knew lay ahead.”
“Brown’s raid set off a chain of events that really widened the chasm between proslavery and abolitionism until eventually, by 1861, Union soldiers were marching to the song, “John Brown’s Body.” From his death through the late 20th century and beyond Brown has been very present spirit in protest movements – and especially black protest movements. Across the 20th century, activists felt themselves to be a part of a century-long movement to finish what the abolitionists began. They recognized that there was still a gap between the promises of Emancipation and the Reconstruction amendments, and the realities of black life in America. The abolitionists’ work was still unfinished – there was no true freedom and equality; black people were terrorized, caught in peonage, segregated, stripped of their right to vote. Activists from the Niagara Movement onward recognized that if John Brown were still alive, he’d still be fighting this legacy of slavery – that he would be taking up arms against lynch mobs.”
Trodd went on to demonstrate how Brown’s words and imagery, and visits to the farm by black leaders, were used throughout the civil rights movement to inspire and rally people to continue the long struggle for true freedom. She does not believe that the fight for Civil Rights was a 10 year effort from the mid-fifties to mid sixties as so often described in the media and history books, but in fact that it began after the Civil War and passage of the Equal Rights amendments when, even though by law blacks had the right to vote, many were denied that right and subjected to another form of slavery for the next century. Through all that, John Brown’s actions and image served as a source of inspiration by those fighting Jim Crow, the segregation and the lynchings that claimed over 5,000 African Americans; an image that now is being taken up by those fighting to end slavery world-wide, slavery being defined as people forced to work against their will for no wages who cannot walk away.
According to the U.S. State Department over 27 million are living slavery today, slavery that draws in people of any race and, instead of using the slave ship, uses the van to transport people. One such person, Maria Suarez, who was sold at age sixteen into and lived in slavery in the United States for 5 years, will participant in the John Brown Coming Home Symposium held in Lake Placid on December 5 and 6.
John Brown’s spirit is still very
much alive said Trodd, still celebrated and reviled in equal measure in part
because he holds up a mirror to the violence that has been so long a part of
our culture, a violence that is at times embraced by people on the far right
and the far left. She described herself as non-violent, as a pacifist, and
finds acceptance to a degree with his actions when they are placed in the
context of slavery as violence by people on others whom they view as less
worthy.
“I hear John Brown in his last speech to the court on November 2nd, entreating his audience “to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them,” said Trodd. “I hear John Brown during his interview right after his defeat at Harper’s Ferry. Lying bleeding on the floor, he tells the Governor (of Virginia) and others, ‘I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them. That is why I am here. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and as precious in the sight of God.’”
Link to North Country Public Radio interview with Zoe Trodd:
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/archive.php?id=14509
Media Contact:
Kim Rielly
Director of Communications
Lake Placid/Essex County Visitors Bureau
49 Parkside Dr.
Lake Placid, NY 12946
Tel: 518.523.2445 ext. 111
E-mail: kim@lakeplacid.com
". . . I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done."-- John Brown
John Brown Coming Home
Naj Wikoff
Lake Placid/Essex County Visitors Bureau
49 Parkside Dr.
Lake Placid, NY 12946
Tel: 518.523.2445 ext. 108
johnbrowncominghome@lakeplacid.com
using the pseudonym Isaac Smith,
took up residence near Harpers Ferry
at a farm in Maryland.
