John Brown Today

Send us Fan Mail One of the most incredible stories related to John Brown that really is not about him is the story of Alexander Milton Ross, a Canadian public figure of the nineteenth century. Ross was most widely known and celebrated in the later nineteenth century because of his antislavery activities and his reputation as a leading abolitionist figure prior to and during the Civil War. However...

Send us Fan Mail Spoiler Alert! If you have not seen the popular movie, "Emperor," you may want to watch it before you listen to this podcast. In this episode, Lou discusses the somewhat mysterious life of Shields Green, a.k.a. Emperor, one of John Brown's Harper's Ferry raiders.  As Lou recounts, it was the making of the "Emperor" movie that prompted him first to wan...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou takes a "deep dive" on understanding John Brown as a person, from describing his physical and personality traits to an extended discussion about Brown's religious views and his inclination to take up for the underdog.  Arguing that Brown certainly is different from popular portrayals, Lou unpacks a biographer's perspective on "the Old...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou discusses the hostile book about John Brown by the late scholar, Otto Scott, The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement.   Scott was a skillful researcher and writer who devoted his life to working for the corporate world, but contributed heavily to racist, right-wing, and white nationalist Christians. His work on Brown is a screed, a work of pro...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou shares the climaxing chapter in John Brown's story--his death, and tells how his body was carried to Philadelphia, Pa., in route to burial in the Adirondacks.  Centering the story on Philadelphia, Lou reflects on Brown's previous visits to the City of Brother Love, including the decisive role that Frederick Douglass played in Brown's disappointe...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou considers one of the most controversial themes in the John Brown story: the Pottawatomie killings of May 1856. Lou argues that there is a standard bias in the way many narrators deal with the controversial Kansas episode, when Brown and his men killed five proslavery neighbors along the Pottawatomie Creek.  All too often, popular narratives on Brown have barel...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we explore the origins of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," reflecting upon the myths and realities of the "white liberal" abolitionist orientation of writer Julia Ward Howe and the pacifist abolitionist elites, and their motivations for rewriting "The John Brown Song." Viewing the "The Battle Hymn" as an intentional replac...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we meet the forgotten journalist, Edward "Ned" House, who was the clandestine reporter for Horace Greeley's New York Daily Tribune at the time the paper was banned in Virginia following John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.  Tribune, an antislavery Bohemian, worked as the Tribune's theater critic, but because he held Democratic party c...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, "The Good Lord Bird," both the novel by James McBride and the SHOWTIME series adaptation by Ethan Hawke are considered with respect to the relation of fiction to history.  There is a difference between the use of fiction in collaboration with history and the use of fiction to rewrite history, Lou contends, and in the case of Old John Brown, "The Goo...

Send us Fan Mail In this podcast, Louis DeCaro Jr. welcomes listeners and introduces himself with some reflections about the significance of John Brown in history, especially relating to the black struggle for justice. DeCaro then discusses the story behind Brown's damaged reputation in history, particularly how white society was miseducated and why. Hey friends, click on this link to get you...