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Saturday, June 15, 2024

Summer 2024 Part 5.

 




 
 



 

165th Year Anniversary of the John Brown Raid. 


The John Brown Raid took place 165 years ago. It was one of the most important events of antebellum America. As we approach the 160th year anniversary of the end of the American Civil War, we have more of a reflection of how America changed. Back then, millions of black people were in tyranny with slavery. Slavery is no country club. Slavery deals with control, brutality, torture, rape, family splitting, obscene acts on human life, and other abominable crimes having no justification at all. People have a God-given right to resist the tyranny of slavery in seeking true freedom. There were many slavery revolts, and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was one of the final anti-slavery revolts in America before the advent of the American Civil War. We know about John Brown and his total disgust of slavery. Yet, there were other men involved in the cause of the raid too like Shields Green, John Henry Kagi, and other brave people who wanted America to end slavery once and for all. Involving the raid, only 5 men escaped, 11 men were killed, and 7 were captured and later executed (including John Brown). John Brown and other men gave up their lives in heroic sacrifice, so we can type on the computer, go to any place we want, and live life without legalized slavery. Their memories will never be forgotten in our consciousness. We will always acknowledge their heroic sacrifice forever and ever. 



 





The Bondage of American Slavery



In our generation, people need to be reminded of the brutality of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery in America. This was part of the Maafa when evil people kidnapped innocent black African men, women, and children and forced them to go into the Americas, Europe, Asia, etc. These human beings were raped, beaten, families split, and forced to do inhumane actions on the ships and plantations. Easily, the Maafa was the worst form of slavery in all of human history. In our generation, many far-right extremists want to sugarcoat the Maafa (like in Florida, Texas, etc.), but we won't do so here. The Maafa lasted from the late 1400's to the 1800's. Afterward, black people in the world are still fighting for justice and human liberation. Slavery still exists in Mauritania, Yemen (with racist Houthi terrorism harming black people and forcing many black people to be slaves), and other places in the world. Most victims of the Maafa came from Western and Central Africa. My DNA ancestry is mostly from Nigeria and the Congo/Angola. Therefore, I know fully about this subject. Many people from Europe, the Middle East, and traitors from Africa were complicit in the Maafa, but the racist Europeans controlled the major functions of the Maafa and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In America, black people were forced into slavery in brutal terms. Yet, we still rose up in slave revolts to fight back. We were involved in the American Civil War to defeat the evil Confederacy to end overt, legalized slavery. Still, we fight against voting rights suppression, book bans, suppression of the rights of minorities, and the MAGA movement. We are on the right side of history, and we shall be victorious in the end.

 





The Planning


The John Brown raid took a lot of planning to create the raid. John Brown rented the Kennedy Farmhouse with a small cabin nearby. This place was 4 miles north of Harpers Ferry in Washington County, Maryland. He took up residence under the name of Isaac Smith. Brown worked with a small group of men for military action. This group grew to include 21 men besides himself. There were 16 white men and five black men. A Northern abolitionist group sent 198 breech-loading .52-caliber Sharps carbines ("Beecher's Bibles"). He ordered from a blacksmith in Connecticut 950 pikes, for use by black people untrained in the use of firearms, as few were. John Brown told curious neighbors that they were tools for mining, which aroused no suspicion as for years the possibility of local mining for metals had been explored. Brown "frequently took home with him parcels of earth, which he pretended to analyze in search of minerals. Often his neighbors would visit him when he was making his chemical experiments and so well did he act his part that he was looked upon as one of profound learning and calculated to be a most useful man to the neighborhood."


The pikes were never used; a few black people in the engine house carried one, but none used it. After the action was over and most of the principals dead or imprisoned, they were sold at high prices as souvenirs. Harriet Tubman had one, and Abby Hopper Gibbons another; the Marines returning to base each had one. When all had been taken or sold, an enterprising mechanic started making and selling new ones. "It is estimated that enough of these have been sold as genuine to supply a large army." Virginian Fire-Eater Edmund Ruffin had them sent to the governors of every slave state, with a label that said "Sample of the favors designed for us by our Northern Brethren." He also carried one around in Washington D.C., showing it to every one he could, "so as to create fear and terror of slave insurrection."




The image above showed the image of "Emperor" Shields Green.



The United States Armory was a large complex of buildings that manufactured small arms for the U.S. Army (1801–1861), with an Arsenal (weapons storehouse) that was thought to contain at the time 100,000 muskets and rifles. However, John Brown, who had his own stock of weapons, did not seek to capture those of the Arsenal. John Brown wanted to attract more black American recruits. There was a lack of tons of people supporting this raid. He tried to recruit Frederick Douglass as liaison officer to the slaves in a meeting held (for safety) in an abandoned quarry in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It was at this meeting that ex-slave "Emperor" Shields Green, rather than return home with Douglass (in whose house Green was living), decided to join with John Brown in his attack on the United States Armory, Green stating to Douglass "I believe I will go with the old man." Douglass declined, indicating to Brown that he believed the raid was a suicide mission. The plan was "an attack on the federal government" that "would array the whole country against us. ...You will never get out alive", he warned. According to Osborne Anderson, "the Old Captain told us, we stood nine chances to one to be killed; but, said the Captain at the same time[,] 'there are moments when men can do more dead than alive.'" 


The Kennedy Farmhouse served as "barracks, arsenal, supply depot, mess hall, debate club, and home." It was very crowded, and life there was tedious. Brown was worried about arousing neighbors' suspicions. As a result, the raiders had to stay indoors during the daytime, without much to do but study (Brown recommended Plutarch's Lives), drill, argue politics, discuss religion and play cards and checkers. Brown's daughter-in-law Martha served as cook and housekeeper. His daughter Annie served as a lookout. She remarked later that these were the most important months of her life. John Brown wanted women at the farm, to prevent suspicions of a large all-male group. The raiders went outside at night to drill and get fresh air. Thunderstorms were welcome since they concealed noise from Brown's neighbors. John Brown didn't plan to make a quick raid and escape to the mountains. He wanted to arm the rebellious slaves to strike terror in the slaveholders in Virginia. Believing that on the first night of action, 200 to 500 slaves would join his line, Brown ridiculed the militia and the regular army that might oppose him. He planned to send agents to nearby plantations, rallying the slaves, and hold Harpers Ferry for a short time, with the expectation that as many volunteers, white and black, would join him as would form against him. He would then move rapidly southward, sending out armed bands along the way that would free more slaves, obtain food, horses, and hostages, and destroy slaveholders' morale. Brown intended to follow the Appalachian Mountains south into Tennessee and even Alabama, the heart of the South, making forays into the plains on either side.







Hugh Forbes had advanced knowledge of the raid. There were at least 80 people who knew about Brown's planned raid in advance. Brown didn't reveal his total plan to anyone. Hugh Forbes was paid $100 per month to be a drillmaster in a total of $600. Forbes was an English mercenary who served Giuseppe Garibaldi (a revolutionary person) in Italy. Forbes's Manual for the Patriotic Volunteer was found in Brown's papers after the raid. Brown and Forbes argued over strategy and money. Forbes wanted more money so that his family in Europe could join him. Forbes sent threatening letters to Brown's backers in an attempt to get money. Failing in this effort, Forbes traveled to Washington, DC, and met with U.S. Senators William H. Seward and Henry Wilson. He denounced Brown to Seward as a "vicious man" who needed to be restrained but did not disclose any plans for the raid. Forbes partially exposed the plan to Senator Wilson and others. Wilson wrote to Samuel Gridley Howe, a Brown backer, advising him to get Brown's backers to retrieve the weapons intended for use in Kansas. Brown's backers told him that the weapons should not be used "for other purposes, as rumor says they may be."  In response to warnings, Brown had to return to Kansas to shore up support and discredit Forbes. Some historians believe that this trip cost Brown valuable time and momentum. Mary Ellen Pleasent donated $30,000 (or 1.1 million dollars in 2023) to help pay for the raid, saying it was "most important and significant act of her life."


One of those who knew was David J. Gue of Springdale, Iowa, where Brown had spent time. Gue was a Quaker who believed that Brown and his men would be killed. Gue decided to warn the government "to protect Brown from the consequences of his own rashness." He sent an anonymous letter to Secretary of War John B. Floyd. Gue wanted Floyd to send soldiers to Harpers Ferry to make Brown call off his plans. Even though President Buchanan offered a $250 reward for Brown, Floyd did not connect the John Brown of Gue's letter to the John Brown of Pottawatomie, Kansas, fame. He knew that Maryland did not have an armory (Harpers Ferry is in Virginia, today West Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Maryland.) Floyd concluded that the letter writer was a crackpot and disregarded it. He later said that "a scheme of such wickedness and outrage could not be entertained by any citizen of the United States."  Brown's second in command John Henry Kagi wrote to a friend on October 15, the day before the attack, that they had heard there was a search warrant for the Kennedy farmhouse, and therefore they had to start eight days sooner than planned. The time was soon to come. The raid started on October 16, 1859, on Sunday. 





The John Brown Raid 


The John Brown raid on Harpers' Ferry started on Sunday night on October 16, 1859 at 11 pm. Brown left three of his men behind as a rear guard, in charge of the cache of weapons; his son  Owen Brown, Barclay Coppock, and Francis Jackson Meriam. He led the rest across the bridge and into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown detached a party under John Cook, Jr., to capture Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grandnephew of George Washington, at his nearby Beall-Air estate, free his slaves, and seize two relics of George Washington: a sword Lewis Washington said had been presented to George Washington by Frederick the Great, and two pistols given by Marquis de Lafayette, which Brown considered talismans. The party carried out its mission and returned via the Allstadt House, where they took more hostages and freed more slaves. John Brown and his allies wanted to capture the Armory and then escaped before word could be sent to Washington, D.C. The raid started good for Brown and the other men. They cut the telegraph line twice to prevent communication in either direction. They wanted to stop communication on the Maryland side of the bridge; slightly later on the far side of the station, preventing communication with Virginia. One of the leaders of the raid, Osborne Anderson mentioned that many slaves were enthusiastic about their plan to free them from bondage and tyranny. By Monday, October 17th, more events happened. A free black man was the first fatality to result from the raid: Heyward Shepherd, a baggage handler at the Harpers Ferry train station, who had ventured out onto the bridge to look for a watchman who had been driven off by Brown's raiders. He was shot from behind when he by chance encountered the raiders, refused to freeze, and headed back to the station. That a black man was the first casualty of an insurrection whose purpose was to aid black people. Heyward Shepherd should not have died, and he thought that the men were robbers. He died over mistaken identity. 



The shot and a cry of distress were heard by physician John Starry, who lived across the street from the bridge and walked over to see what was happening. After he saw it was Shepherd and that he could not be saved, Brown let him leave. Instead of going home, he started the alarm, having the bell on the Lutheran church rung, sending a messenger to summon help from Charles Town, and then going there himself, after having notified such local men as could be contacted quickly. John Brown and his men boarded the train. At about 7 AM it arrived at the first station with a working telegraph, Monocacy, near Frederick, Maryland, about 23 miles (37 km) east of Harpers Ferry. The conductor sent a telegram to W. P. Smith, Master of Transportation at B&O headquarters in Baltimore. Smith's reply to the conductor rejected his report as "exaggerated", but by 10:30 AM he had received confirmation from Martinsburg, Virginia, the next station west of Harpers Ferry. No westbound trains were arriving and three eastbound trains were backed up on the Virginia side of the bridge;  because of the cut telegraph line the message had to take a long, roundabout route via the other end of the line in Wheeling, and from there back east via Pittsburgh, causing delay.  At that point, Smith informed the railroad president, John W. Garrett, who sent telegrams to Major General George H. Steuart of the First Light Division, Maryland Volunteers, Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise, U.S. Secretary of War John B. Floyd, and U.S. President James Buchanan.




At the Armory, employees began arriving to work. Later, they were taken as hostages by John Brown's party. Reports differ on how many there were, but there were many more than would fit in the small engine house. Brown divided them into two groups, keeping only the ten most important in the engine house the others were held in a different Armory building. According to the report from Robert E. Lee, some of the hostages are Colonel L. W. Washington of Jefferson County, Virginia, Mr. George D. Shope of Frederick, Maryland, etc. As it became known that citizens had been taken hostage by an armed group, men of Harpers Ferry found themselves without arms other than fowling-pieces, which were useless at a distance. Military companies from neighboring towns began to arrive late Monday morning. Among them was Captain John Avis, who would soon be Brown's jailor, who arrived with a company of militia from Charles Town. John Brown stayed too long in Harpers Ferry. It was on a narrow peninsula, almost an island. Many militia people came. 





The militia companies, under the direction of Colonels R. W. Baylor and John T. Gibson, forced the insurgents to abandon their positions and, since escape was impossible, fortify themselves in "a sturdy stone building", the most defensible in the Armory, the fire engine house, which would be known later as John Brown's Fort. (There were two fire engines, which Greene described as old-fashioned and heavy, plus a hose cart). They blocked the few windows, used the engines and hose cart to block the heavy doors, and reinforced the doors with rope, making small holes on the walls and through them trading sporadic gunfire with the surrounding militia. Between 2 and 3 there was "a great deal of firing." During the day four townspeople were killed, including the mayor, who managed the Harpers Ferry station and was a former county sheriff. Eight militiamen were wounded. But the militia, besides the poor quality of their weapons, were disorderly and unreliable. "Most of them [militiamen] got roaring drunk." "A substantial proportion of the militia (along with many of the townspeople) had become a disorganized, drunken, and cowering mob by the time that Colonel Robert E. Lee and the U.S. Marines captured Brown on Tuesday, October 18." The Charleston Mercury called it a "broad and pathetic farce." According to several reports, Governor Wise was outraged at the poor performance of the local militia.



At one point Brown sent out his son Watson and Aaron Dwight Stevens with a white flag, but Watson was mortally wounded by a shot from a town man, expiring after more than 24 hours of agony, and Stevens was shot and taken prisoner. The raid was clearly failing. One of Brown's men, William H. Leeman, panicked and made an attempt to flee by swimming across the Potomac River, but he was shot and killed while doing so. During the intermittent shooting, another son of Brown, Oliver, was also hit; he died, next to his father, after a brief period. Brown's third participating son, Owen, escaped (with great difficulty) via Pennsylvania to the relative safety of his brother John Jr.'s house in Ashtabula County in northeast Ohio, but he was not part of the Harpers Ferry action; he was guarding the weapons at their base, the Kennedy Farm, just across the river in Maryland.


President James Buchanan called out a detachment of U.S. Marines from the Washington Navy Yard, the only federal troops in the immediate area: 81 privates, 11 sergeants, 13 corporals, and 1 bugler, armed with seven howitzers. The Marines left for Harper's Ferry on the regular 3:30 train, arriving about 10 PM. Israel Greene was in charge.


To command them Buchanan ordered Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee, conveniently on leave at his home, just across the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, to "repair" to Harpers Ferry, where he arrived about 10 PM, on a special train. Lee had no uniform readily available, and wore civilian clothes.  





The Aftermath


By October 18, 1859, the Marines broke through the engine house door. At 6:30 AM Lee began the attack on the engine house.  He first offered the role of attacking it to the local militia units, but both commanders declined. Lee then sent Lt. J. E. B. Stuart, serving as a volunteer aide-de-camp, under a white flag of truce to offer John Brown and his men the option of surrendering. Colonel Lee informed Lt. Israel Greene that if Brown did not surrender, he was to direct the Marines to attack the engine house. Stuart walked towards the front of the engine house where he told Brown that his men would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused and as Stuart walked away, he made a pre-arranged signal—waving his hat—to Lt. Greene and his men standing nearby. Greene's men then tried to break in using sledgehammers, but their efforts were unsuccessful. He found a ladder nearby, and he and about twelve Marines used it as a battering ram to break down the sturdy doors. Greene was the first through the door and with the assistance of Lewis Washington, identified and singled out John Brown. Greene later recounted what events occurred next. Greene said that John Brown was hit with blow to the neck. Two of the raiders were killed, and the rest were taken prisoner. Brown was wounded before and after his surrender.  The hostages were freed, and the assault was over. It lasted three minutes. 

According to one marine, the raiders presented a sad appearance. Army leader Robert E. Lee and the Marines had to calm the crowd from killing Brown and his men. Colonel Lee and Jeb Stuart searched the surrounding country for fugitives who had participated in the attack. Few of Brown's associates escaped, and among the five who did, some were sheltered by abolitionists in the North, including William Still. All the bodies were taken out and laid on the ground in front. "A detail of [Greene's] men" carried Brown and Edwin Coppock, the only other white survivor of the attack on the engine house, to the adjacent office of the paymaster, where they lay on the floor for over a day. Until they went with the group to the Charles Town jail on Wednesday, there was no record of the location of the two-surviving captured black raiders, Shields Green and John Anthony Copeland, who were also the only two survivors of the engine house with no injuries. Green attempted unsuccessfully to disguise himself as one of the enslaved of Colonel Washington being liberated.


John Brown was interviewed constantly by soldiers, politicians, lawyers, reporters, citizens, and preachers. He was given attention. The first to interview him was Virginia congressman Alexander Boteler, who rode over from his home in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and was present when Brown was carried out of the engine house, and told a Catholic priest to leave.  Five people, in addition to several reporters, came almost immediately to Harpers Ferry specifically to interview Brown. He was interviewed at length as he lay there for over 24 hours; he had been without food and sleep for over 48 hours. ("Brown carried no provisions on the expedition as if God would rain down manna from the skies as He had done for the Israelites in the wilderness"). The first interviewers after Boteler were Virginia Governor Wise, his attorney Andrew Hunter, who was also the leading attorney in Jefferson County, and Robert Ould, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent by President Buchanan. Governor Wise having left—he set up a base in a Harpers Ferry hotel—Brown was then interviewed by Senator James M. Mason, from Winchester, Virginia, and Representatives Charles J. Faulkner, from Martinsville, Virginia, and Copperhead Clement Vallandigham, from Ohio.  (Brown lived for years in Ohio, and both Watson and Owen Brown were born there.) Vallandingham was on his way from Washington to Ohio via the B&O Railroad, which of course would take him through Harpers Ferry. In Baltimore, he was informed about the raid.




Many people in the North and West viewed Brown as a fanatic attacking Virginia with only 22 men, of whom 10 were killed immediately, and 7 others would soon be hanged, as well as 5 deaths and 9 injuries among the Marines and local population. With the newspaper reports of these interviews, followed by Brown's widely reported words at his trial, the public perception of Brown changed suddenly and dramatically. According to Henry David Thoreau, "I know of nothing so miraculous in our history. Years were not required for a revolution of public opinion; days, nay hours, produced marked changes." Even people who disagreed with Brown viewed him as a brave man. Virginia Governor Wise had a force of 90 men acted disappointed that that action ended quickly. Wise also reported the opinion of Lewis Washington, in a passage called "well known" in 1874: "Colonel Washington says that he, Brown, was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand and held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dearly as they could."







Martyrdom


By October 19, Lee and the Marines, except for Greene left Harper's Ferry to go to Washington, D.C. They finished the report and sent it to the War Department. There was a synopsis of the events at Harpers Ferry. Brown was hastily processed by the legal system. He was charged by a grand jury with treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and inciting a slave insurrection. A jury found him guilty of all charges; he was sentenced to death on November 2, and after a legally-required delay of 30 days he was hanged on December 2. (This execution was witnessed by the actor John Wilkes Booth, who later assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.) At the hanging and en route to it, authorities prevented spectators from getting close enough to Brown to hear a final speech. He wrote his last words on a scrap of paper given to his jailer Capt. John Avis, whose treatment Brown spoke well of in his letters:

"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 very much bloodshed; it might be done." 

His words here predicted the Civil War as legalized slavery was never going to be abolished except by the American Civil War. Four other raiders were executed on December 16 and two more on March 16, 1860. Many Southerners viewed John Brown as a traitor, and many Northerners either viewed him as a martyr or a misguided person who legitimately opposed slavery. Ironically, the John Brown raid increased the chance of the American Civil War. Brown's raid, trial, and execution energized both the abolitionists in the North and the pro-slavery in the South and brought a flurry of political organizing. Public meetings in support of Brown, sometimes also raising money for his family, were held across the North. One source mentioned, "These meetings gave the era's most illustrious thinkers and activists an opportunity to renew their assault on slavery."  It reinforced Southern sentiment for secession. By 1860, war was on the horizon. Just 2 years after John Brown's raid in 1859, the American Civil War started in 1861 with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Counting John Brown, there were 22 raiders, 15 white people, and 7 black people. 10 were killed during the raid, 7 were tried and executed afterward, and 5 escaped. In addition, Brown was assisted by at least two local enslaved people; one was killed and the other died in jail. John Brown is buried on his farm near Lake Placid, New York. It is maintained as the New York John Brown Farm State Historic Site. His son Watson is also buried there, and the bones of his son Oliver and nine other raiders are buried in a single coffin. 






Survivors


Five of the organizers of the John Brown raid escaped. At least 22 men were involved in the raid too. Some of the escaped people were Francis Jackson Merriam, Barclay Coppock, and Owen Brown who escaped across Pennsylvania They took refuge in Astabula County, Ohio, where John Brown Jr lived. They were described as voters in the location. By November 1859, Governor Wise offered a reward of $500 (or $16,956 in 2023) each for the apprehension of the four white escapes. Charles Plummer Tidd was a lumberman from Maine. He met John Brown in Kansas who died during the American Civil War in 1862. He died of a fever while being in the Union Army. Owen Brown lived in Ohio for a time. He raised grapes on an island in Lake Erie or the Chicago market. He died on January 8,1889 in Pasadena, California. His funeral was an event with a marching band. His burial site is atop a peak named Brown's Peak being a local tourist attraction today. Albert Hazlett, 23, fought in Kansas, escaped following the raid but was captured and hanged on March 16, 1860. He was buried in John Brown Burial grounds.  Osborne Perry Anderson escaped capture following the raid. He died in 1873. Osborne Perry Anderson is both the only Black escapee and the only escapee that had been in the engine house. He is also the only raider to publish a memoir about the raid. He served as a recruiter for the Union Army and died in poverty in 1872. He is buried unknown grave at the National Harmony Cemetery Park Cemetery, Hyattsville Maryland. Barclay Coppoc, 19, escaped capture following the raid. He fought in the Civil War. He died September 4, 1861, in a train crash caused by bushwackers; buried Mount Aurora Cemetery, Leavenworth. Kansas. Francis Jackson Meriam, 22, grandson of Francis Jackson was a leader of Antislavery Societies. Meriam was an aristocrat. He escaped during the raid. Captain Meriam led an African American infantry group during the Civil War. He died on November 28, 1865; New York County.



 


Being Inspired


The John Brown raid in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) was a massive time in the antebellum period of American history. It happened in 1859 which is almost 100 years after the birth of America. America was born in the midst of conflict and controversies. The British Empire wanted to control the colonists in America, but many colonists wanted to set up their own independent country, free from monarchical rule. America at one point almost lost the Revolutionary War, and even Norfolk, Virginia was burned to the ground during the conflict of the Revolutionary War. Yet, aid from France, Spain, and other nations along with American resiliency caused the Patriots to be victorious by the end of the Revolutionary War (after the Treaty of Paris in 1783). Many Americans back then wanted justice for all, and many Americans didn't desire that aim. The Preamble of the Constitution mentioned that "all men are created equal," but slavery, oppression against women, and genocide against Native Americans were realities. John Brown was an eclectic, eccentric man who desired an end to slavery against black Americans. He didn't just talk about ending slavery. He was actively engaged in Kansas to fight pro-slavery forces. It is important to note that black freedom included people of many colors, but it originated and was headed by black people. The prominent role of black people in the overall global black freedom struggle should be acknowledged regardless of DeSantis and his MAGA allies trying to sugarcoat black history. John Brown's raid was not supported by everyone in the abolitionist movement, because many felt it was a suicidal, impossible mission. On the other hand, no one can discount John Brown's courage and firm conviction to fight overt tyranny in American society. There were black and white men involved in the raid. Most of these men lost their lives in service to the cause of freeing black people from bondage. Slavery involves torture, rape, splitting families, ruining culture, murder, kidnapping, other forms of abuse, and other evils that have no justification. The survivors of the raid moved to other places in America to live their lives. John Brown's raid was one of the final events before the American Civil War (Many Southern states seceded from the Union by the early 1860's, and the Confederate Constitution explicitly condoned slavery). The American Civil War ended overt legalized slavery and expanded the federal government to new heights to reckon with the reality that one nation means one nation (not multiple states acting as separate nations that existed in the era of the Anti-Federalists vs. Federalists). John Brown and his allies will forever be remembered as heroic people who desired goodness to prevail over injustice. In the end, good will triumph, and that day will be so glorious in the eyes of Almighty God. 


 



Conclusion (Summer 2024)


Donald Trump visiting GOP Congressional leaders at the U.S. Capitol is him returning to the scene of the crime. Trump provoked the terrorist mob to attack the U.S. Capitol building in trying to ruin democracy as we know it. These insurrectionists destroyed property, called police racist slurs, threatened to hang Mike Pence, and did other graphic actions in the U.S. Capitol. Trump called these terrorists "warriors." These people are not warriors, but criminals who waved Neo-Nazi and Confederate flags in the U.S. Capitol for the first time in American history. We have to be clear that cowards like McConnell and Cruz (who Trump disrespected both of these men's wives without apology. They are not real men, as real men will defend their wives' dignity) still support Trump in the 2024 Presidential election. This battle for our democracy is real. Our ancestors defeated the Confederates in 1865, defeated the Axis Powers in 1945, defeated racists at Selma in 1965, and we will defeat Trumpism once again in our generation. This battle for our freedom and democracy is as real as it gets. This time of Juneteenth in 2024 should give us great motivation to earnestly keep advocating for this cause for human liberation. 


Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss international issues. Vice President Harris said that more than $1.5 billion in aid for Ukraine will exist. This conference in Switzerland desires peace in Ukraine. The money includes 500 million dollars in new funding for energy assistance and 324 million dollars in redirected funds toward emergency energy infrastructure repair. The problem with the anti-Ukraine forces among the far right and the fake left is that they ignore or minimize the overt war crimes done by Putin's military forces. You can't condemn Netanyahu's war cries in Gaza and ignore the Russian war crimes in Ukraine. People who do that are hypocrites. Ukraine has every God-given right to use self-defense against Russian illegal invasion. There is a nuisance in the conflict. For example, I don't agree with Ukraine attacking Russia, but the overall point is that Ukraine has the right to be a free, independent nation without Russian imperialism. 


Marilyn Mosby was sentenced to one year of home detention. She faced multiple years in prison, but the judge has shown compassion to her. She has three years of supervised release. Marilyn Mosby was a victim of a political agenda in trying to target Mosby, because she was a progressive black woman who fought for civil rights and human rights. Marilyn Mosby used the money that she used to create a better life for her family. I agree with her that she should be pardoned. The recent Supreme Court decision of Alexander vs. State Conference of the South Carolina NAACP represents Alito and other Justices' biases. The decision sought to keep a congressional map that a lower court had found to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Alito and five other Republican justices made it harder to challenge racial gerrymandering (like moving black voters from one district to another in South Carolina to promote a stronger Republican political power base).


Nikki Haley saying that she is voting for Trump in November is not shocking. It is typical of many Republicans caring more for a party than justice. Trump has promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and his embrace of fascist rhetoric shows Trump to lack character as a human being. Trump disrespected Haley's own husband, but Haley wants to vote for Trump. That's cowardice. Haley said that Biden has been a catastrophe which is a false statement. Biden passed some of the most progressive legislation in American history since the LBJ era. President Biden oversaw massive reductions in the unemployment rate, growth of business, the cutting of child poverty, and an increase in the greatest economic recovery from the pandemic than any Western nation on Earth (proving the resiliency of the American economy). Haley believes in the myth that Trump and Biden are equally bad when Trump wants a Muslim ban, desires to harm the press if it disagrees with him and seeks to promote immunity for officers who commit police brutality. Haley is a hypocrite who condemned Trump's statements disrespecting the military, but she wants to vote for him. Haley doesn't embrace Putin, but many GOP and MAGA cultists glorify Putin like Tucker Carlson.

It is important to expose the racist far right person Lilly Gaddis. These enemies of truth are part of the new generation of racists who want to cause division and anti-black hatred under the guise of claiming to be real "conservatives.". She said the n word and used other xenophobic rhetoric. She spewed her nonsense on TikTok. She promoted herself as the "traditional wife," but character is something that she doesn't have. She cries about freedom of speech, but freedom of speech has consequences. People have the right to use the freedom of speech to boycott her and not support her because of her MAGA views. She lied and said that her statements were out of context, but her words speak for themselves. Gaddis lied and said that there is not a lot of racism in America. Tell that to the families of the victims of Buffalo whose loved ones were murdered by a white racist, tell that to the families of the victims of Emmanuel Baptist Church whose loved ones were murdered by a white racist, and tell that to the increased incidents of hate crimes against black people (and other minorities in America) now. Gaddis wants to exploit the pain of African Americans to advance hatred and stereotypes, but we are on to her nefarious game. 

Many people have talked about the Diddy apology video. In that video, Diddy never said Cassie's name or made a direct apology to Cassie at all. He did apologize for what he had done, but he lied previously in denying all allegations against him. What he has done has no justification. Witnesses from bodyguards, Cassie, other victims, and videotape evidence document Diddy's history of emotional and physical abuse. Many people accused Diddy of sexual abuse and human sex trafficking. Diddy is desperate to salvage his reputation. The truth is that the story of Diddy is filled with materialism, violence, and depraved actions. The video shows it all. Diddy not only beat Cassie up, but he threw an object at her. This relates to a vicious mentality. Even during the 1990's, I knew that something wasn't right with Diddy. In our time, we have to promote ethics and morality, not nihilism. You will notice that Diddy lied in his initial statement that all of these allegations against him were false. Diddy was sorry that he was caught point-blank period. His recent video proves that his recent denials are lies. Therefore, the Golden Rule is one great truth that we must all live by.



By Timothy



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