John Brown Today

Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of this gripping exploration into John Brown and his Jewish associates in Kansas, Lou revisits the infamous Pottawatomie Creek killings. Grounding the narrative in the vital testimony of August Bondi alongside other primary and secondary sources, the episode reframes the violence not as random slaughter but as a preemptive strike. Lou demonstrates how Theodore Wiener bec...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou introduces us to the fascinating and unlikely alliance between John Brown’s family and local Jewish immigrants in the violent, war-torn landscape of Territorial Kansas. To set the stage, Lou explores how Brown—a self-conscious heir to the rigid Puritan Protestant tradition—deeply conceptualized and viewed the Jewish people. We are then introduced to three of B...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou uploads the transcript of the extended introduction of his book,  John Brown Speaks (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) to one of Google's AI programs, Notebook LM.  Notebook LM "reads" the introduction and then produces a faux podcast featuring two human-like voices discussing the content of the article. As this experiment shows, AI is a very usef...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou introduces the question of whether John Brown should be posthumously pardoned. The theme begins with biographer David S. Reynold's Op-Ed in the New York Times on December 1, 2009 entitled, "Freedom's Martyr," in which  he suggested the symbolic value of a posthumous pardon for Brown, either by the State of Virginia or even by then President...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou revisits the story of James and Maehala Doyle of Tennessee, who devoted themselves and their family to supporting slavery and opposing antislavery and abolitionist settlers in the Kansas Territory. In the Pottawatomie incident of May 1856, Doyle and his two oldest sons, William and Drury, were killed by John Brown's men, under the leadership of the old ma...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou speaks with Dan Morrison, the founder of the John Brown Project and a documentary filmmaker from Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown’s birthplace. Morrison details his work, including a community arts project that produced a 21st-century remix of the Civil War era song, "John Brown's Body" and his current musical documentary, " Pushing the...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou breaks with the regular approach of this podcast to put a John Brown lens on pressing contemporary issues. He specifically addresses three main topics, arguing why John Brown would be an anti-Zionist due to the movement's oppressive colonial practices and its perceived anti-biblical, racialized nature; critiquing the notion that the recently murdered Char...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou interviews the preeminent cultural historian of the 19th-century USA, David S. Reynolds . This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Reynolds' landmark biography, John Brown Abolitionist . Reynolds opens by describing his most recent project, the forthcoming Two Ships (Penguin), and then revisits the writing of John Brown Abolitionist...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I am inviting you on a peculiar historical tour of the term, "Secret Six." While John Brown students are accustomed to seeing this term used to speak of Brown's key supporters, this episode is about the origin of the term and its significance in the literature about Brown.  As you'll discover, while the "tour" of "Secret Six&quot...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou discusses two recent online articles to illustrate how John Brown is often appropriated and misused by writers in discussing contemporary issues.  The first article discussed is an effort to draw a parallel between John Brown and Luigi Mangione, who allegedly murdered a healthcare executive in cold blood last year. The second article presents John Brown as a C...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou discusses the animals--pets, livestock, and others who are part of the John Brown story, from the dogs of Harper's Ferry to a cat who went to Kansas.  Just when you thought you'd heard everything about John Brown, huh? Guest music: "Story of a Toy" by Freedom Trail Studio (Youtube) Also available on the John Brown Today YouTube station Supp...

Send us Fan Mail Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906, and was a German Lutheran pastor, a figure noted in the theological world for his neo-orthodox views, and his most popular book, The Cost of Discipleship.  Bonhoeffer is more widely remembered as an anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church which opposed the Nazis.  In the 1940s, Bonhoeffer joined the German un...

Send us Fan Mail After the better of two years, John Brown Today is going back in production. This is just a brief message to greet listeners and to update them a bit, and thank them for maintaining an interest in this podcast. John Brown Today is coming back and I'm looking forward to what lies ahead.  So stay tuned.   Please note that two episodes will be uploaded for December 2024. Music:...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou does a deep dive evaluation of the legend of John Brown kissing a black baby on the day of his execution,  a story that has been enshrined in poetry and paintings.  Sharing his research on the topic, Lou considers the evidence and draws some interesting conclusions suggesting that this legend may have more than a core of truth. Check out the video version on m...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou shares a conversation with author Ed Maliskas, a musician, clergyman, and researcher, the author of John Brown to James Brown: The Little Farm Where Liberty Budded, Blossomed, and Boogied (2016).  In this fascinating discussion, Ed talks about coming to learn about the old Kennedy Farm in Maryland where John Brown and his raiders lived prior to the Harper&apos...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou takes on the difficult theme of Heyward Shepherd, the black porter who was mortally wounded by John Brown's men during the Harper's Ferry raid, on the night of October 16, 1859.  Reviewing the initial incidents of the raid, Lou considers the conventional narrative of Shepherd's demise, but then takes a sharp left turn: was Heyward Shepherd reall...

Send us Fan Mail After an extended hiatus, Lou returns with a reaction & reflection upon the YouTube video, "John Brown: Terrorist or Hero?" which features a short lecture by the eminent historian David Blight.  John Brown Today features the audio version here, and listeners can also view the reaction & reflection video here (or copy this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6...

Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of this two-part episode, Lou reflects upon the question of white allies, particularly in the case of John Brown's story. What did black leaders and other associates really think of John Brown?  Recalling Brown's devotion to black liberation and notable devotion to human equality, Lou suggests nevertheless that human interaction is by nature complex and even Br...

Send us Fan Mail In Part 1 of "What Did Blacks Really Think of John Brown?" Lou reflects upon the question of white allies, particularly in the case of John Brown's story. What did black leaders and other associates really think of John Brown?  Recalling Brown's devotion to black liberation and notable devotion to human equality, Lou suggests nevertheless that human interaction...

Send us Fan Mail Many people in the United States, especially (but not exclusively) white people, tend to think of John Brown as someone who was "crazy." In this episode, Lou surveys what he calls a historical "thread" regarding the alleged insanity of Brown.  Beginning with affidavits filed in Virginia in 1859 in an attempt by friends and relatives in Ohio to spare Brown'...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou presents a narrative written by John Brown's young lawyer, George H. Hoyt, written only a few years after the abolitionist's hanging.  Hoyt went to join John Brown in Charlestown, Virginia (today West Va.) and support his lawyers, but really went as a spy for Brown's supporters in the North who wanted to launch a rescue. But not only was the res...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou responds to the comments of a thoughtful but critical podcast listener who has well-stated reasons for asking, "why John Brown?"  The question is a good one and Lou starts with personal and scholarly reflections on a range of views of Brown that range from anti-Brown to non-admirer.  Then, Lou shares the podcast listener's comments and attempts...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou does a deep dive into the story of William Leeman, the youngest of John Brown's Harper's Ferry raiders.  From his origins in Maine to Kansas and his enlistment in John Brown's army, we look at the story of a young man with feet of iron and clay, whose death in Virginia in 1859 resonates with the racist gun violence and mass killings that grip ou...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou is interviewed by Dr. Chris Dost, biblical scholar and pastor of the Northville Baptist Church in New Milford, Connecticut.  This audio is excerpted from an interview recorded on July 10, 2021. Closing tune: "Amazing Grace" by Cooper Cannell Hey friends, click on this link to get your JOHN BROWN TODAY Podcast Mug! Feedback? https://www.speakpipe.com/...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lou provides a slice of biography, zooming in on John Brown's personal and economic challenges as a frontier entrepreneur and his often forgotten comeback in the early 1840s. While overlooked by unstudied and prejudiced scholars, Brown actually bounced back in the mid-1840s and distinguished himself as one of the leading experts on fine sheep and wool. Lookin...