John Brown is often remembered—whether from history class or recent portrayals like Ethan Hawke’s in The Good Lord Bird—as a ruthless fanatic. However, a modern perspective is challenging this conventional view.
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Far from being a mere “madman,” Brown was a white radical activist who demonstrated the courage to directly confront the systemic brutality of slavery, ultimately sacrificing his own life for the cause of Black liberation. For many Civil Rights figures throughout history, he represented the pinnacle of allyship, not a villain. W.E.B. Du Bois and Alice Walker are among those who saw him this way. Malcolm X famously declared that he would only accept white allies if they were like Brown, and the late Dick Gregory lauded him as the “number one being produced in America.”
Now, a new wave of internet Black creators are reclaiming his story, reframing Brown not as “crazy,” but as a man of profound moral clarity and action. Here is why his legacy is being rewritten.
Early Roots of Radicalism
Born May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown was raised by devoutly religious parents who also had strong antislavery sentiments. They raised Brown and his siblings to have the same beliefs.
While Brown was already raised against slavery, one moment in his early years that strengthened his moral position was witnessing the beating of a young slave boy. This moment made Brown certain of his beliefs and made him want to do something about slavery in America, according to the Virginia Commonwealth University library.
Working On The Underground Railroad
Brown’s activism started long before he left the house. When his family lived in Hudson, Ohio, the young abolitionist worked alongside his father as a conductor for the Underground Railroad. The father-son pair helped enslaved people escape to Cleveland and gave refuge to escapees in their home, according to the Summit County Historical Society of Akron, Ohio.
A Failed Businessman
Although Brown had already done some work as an activist from a young age, he did not become a fierce revolutionary until he was in his fifties. Throughout his early adulthood, he had multiple failed business ventures across the country as a farmer, cattle merchant, land speculator and horse trader. By the early 1840s, he was bankrupt.
However, these constant struggles led Brown to focus more on the abolitionist movement and feel that he was on a mission to be the messenger of God to end slavery, according to the State University of New York Plattsburgh library.
Forming A Friendship With Frederick Douglass
Becoming more involved with the abolitionist movement, Brown made sure to make himself known within the cause. He became friends with the famous former abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1847 when they first met at Brown’s Springfield, Massachusetts, home, per Biography.
By this point, Brown had become increasingly serious about freeing enslaved people, and his fiery energy struck a chord in Douglass, who was impressed by his fervor and his plans to free the enslaved.
In his autobiography, “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” Douglass wrote: “While I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the less hopeful of its peaceful abolition. My utterances became more and more tinged by the color of this man’s strong impressions.”
Moving To North Elba
As a penniless businessman with a passion for the abolitionist cause, Brown was inspired to move to North Elba, New York, in 1849 by his friend and fellow abolitionist Gerrit Smith. Smith wanted to gift 120,000 acres of land to formerly enslaved men so they could become landowners and secure the right to vote, according to the Saranac Lake newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
However, if they were to be landowners, the new settlers needed to learn how to farm, and that is where Brown was needed. Brown taught the Black men how to take care of their newly acquired land and fend for themselves.
It would also be in North Elba where Brown would receive a letter that sparked the violent turning point in his political career.
“Bleeding Kansas”
In 1856, while in North Elba, Brown received a letter from his sons, who were in the Kansas Territory. Like their father, Brown’s sons were just as impassioned as he was, and in the letter, they told their father of pro-slavery folk who had moved into and attacked the territory that was filled with a majority of antislavery folks. Vexed by this, Brown went to Kansas to enact revenge on the pro-slavers.
Bringing swords with him, Brown, along with four of his sons and a handful of other supporters to the cause, devised a plan to kidnap five pro-slavery settlers at night and chop up their bodies, according to History Today. After the murders, Brown and his men washed off in a stream and left the scene of the crime. However, the gruesome act instigated a wave of violence in Kansas as those who were pro-slavery retaliated and those who were antislavery fought back. This went on for the entire summer of 1856, before Kansas was finally declared a free state. That period in history became known as Bleeding Kansas.
Meeting Harriet Tubman
With a fire still in him from “Bleeding Kansas,” Brown was now ready to put into action a longtime plan to free enslaved people in the South and transport them through the Appalachian Mountains to the North. This plan would become known as the raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It involved arming enslaved Black Americans with guns, creating a guerrilla army to seize the federal armory, and starting a violent uprising against slaveowners across the South.
However, he needed help structuring his plot, so he planned a meeting with Harriet Tubman—or as he admiringly called her, “General Tubman,” whom he had never met before, according to The National Park Service.
The two met on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and she helped Brown recruit formerly enslaved people in Canada for the raid. Tubman’s geographical knowledge of the South and Mid-Atlantic region was also incredibly useful for Brown, who used it to plot out how he would sneak up to the armory for his raid, per to the National Park Service. However, due to her falling ill, Tubman was unable to join Brown for the raid.
Harpers Ferry
Now, ready for action and with a hunger for justice, Brown was set to put his plan into motion. Even though he had received warnings from his close friend Frederick Douglass that he would never get out alive and even a prophetic dream from Harriet Tubman of a man striking his head, Brown went through with the raid. It started well, with Brown and his 21 men capturing the night watchman and occupying the armory without the use of violence, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. But everything went downhill from there.
Unfortunately for Brown, he was unable to rally the support he needed, leading to him having a significantly smaller army than he wanted. This made it much easier for the U.S. Army Colonel. Robert E. Lee to lead the United States Marines and local military men who would stop the raid and capture John Brown’s men. The men in Brown’s army, including his sons, were killed at the scene, while Brown was wounded and tried in court.
Dying For The Abolitionist Cause
For his raid on Harpers Ferry, Brown was charged with murder, inciting slave insurrection, and treason against the state of West Virginia. He was sentenced to death by hanging. According to the history site, Teaching American History, many attempted to plead for Brown’s release by attributing his actions to insanity, completely brushing away the fact that Brown was passionate about fighting for the freedom of slaves. However, Brown didn’t see himself as an insane man, but as a man fighting for a worthy cause, which he knew would bring bloodshed.
When he heard his sentence Brown famously said, “if it is 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!”
After his hanging, Brown was buried at his home in North Elba, New York.
John Brown’s Legacy
While many at the time accused Brown of being a terrorist and crazy, these indictments have not stained his legacy. Brown is often recognized as a martyr for the abolitionist movement, with his death being a catalyst that helped spark the Civil War, as it put a spotlight on the cracks between the North and the South when it came to the issue of slavery.
In a speech at Storer College in Harpers Ferry, 1881, Frederick Douglass recognized Brown’s raid as the action that pushed the country into action.
“When John Brown stretched forth his arm, the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was gone, and to the armed hosts of freedom, standing above the chasm of a broken Union, was committed the decision of the sword,” Douglass said, according to his Biography.
In a 1906 address at Harpers Ferry, the famous writer and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois said that while he did not believe in violence, he did believe in the spirit of John Brown.
“We believe in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation and life itself on the altar of right,” Du Bois said. “And here on the scene of John Brown’s martyrdom, we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.”
Praise From Civil Rights Icons
Not only did Brown’s actions inspire the abolitionists of the time to take action against slavery, but his allyship with Black people and his fire for the movement were praised by civil rights activists long after his time. In a 2013 keynote speech, Dick Gregory said that Brown wasn’t mad; it was slavery that was crazy.
“He was the only white man I know that would’ve gotten into heaven for doing what he did to free us. He didn’t just talk; he didn’t just ‘listen and learn.’ He put his life on the line because he knew that’s what justice required.”
And Malcolm X once said that if white people want to join the civil rights movement said “So if we need white allies in this country, we don’t need those kinds who compromise. We don’t need those kinds who encourage us to be polite, responsible, you know. We don’t need those kinds who give us that kind of advice. We don’t need those kinds who tell us how to be patient. No, if we want some white allies, we need the kind that John Brown was, or we don’t need you. And the only way to get those kinds is to turn in a new direction.”
John Brown In Pop Culture
Thanks to the 2020 limited series “The Good Lord Bird,” John Brown’s story has come to light. But even though he is the hero in the show, fighting for the abolitionist movement within the program, he remains depicted as a nutty abolitionist who had everybody shaking in their boots, rather than a man retaliating against the violence that was enacted on enslaved people.
TikTok Says John Brown Did Nothing Wrong
However, TikTok has begun watching”The Good Lord Bird,” and users are painting Brown in a fresh light—not as a madman or a terrorist, but as someone with strong morals and the conviction to fight for the freedom of Black people in America. In a time when slavery is finally being recognized as the gravest crime against humanity by the UN, Browns involvement is no longer seen as terrorism, but an impassioned act to end the terror inflicted upon African Americans.
TikToker @kvngjac said there should be a national holiday for John Brown. “We got all this Christopher Columbus Day, President’s Day. What about a day for this motherfucker?” he asked. “I fuck with John Brown.”
Another TikToker, @keepitscruffy, said Brown was Christlike. “I think if there’s one person in American history you can say is most like Jesus, it’s John Brown,” he said. “He knew a sacrifice needed to be made and that’s why I think there’s a Christlike American image, it’s John Brown.”
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