JOHN BROWN: Crazed Terrorist or American Hero? | The Raid on Harpers Ferry
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ม.ค. 2021
- Was John Brown a midnight terrorist or revolutionary hero? A deep dive into one of history's most controversial figures.
Narration from a lecture by Yale professor David W. Blight.
Editing and Motion Graphics by Brandon Fake | brandonfake.com
Full lecture here: • 9. John Brown's Holy W...
He understood what it means to die for a cause. I think what he said about being hanged was quite accurate. Some of our greatest civil rights leaders had a massive impact for the very reason that they were killed for what they believed in.
Thanks John Brown you fought for people like me to be human and for that no amount of gratitude is to much 💪🏾✊🏾
We all people like you, stay safe brother!
Couldn't of said it better myself. He's Jesus Christ to black Americans.
So true Bro , greetings from México, John Brown , a true Hero, a good man , a man with principies, one of the few U.S.A. históric peoples , That awakes my admiration
He should done something about slavery in Africa.
This is the hero they never talk about. They gave a serial killer a federal holiday. Christopher Columbus. Killed over 800 thousand are more indigenous people.
Hero. All the “he was crazy” shit was pro-slavery propaganda. He was a fervently religious man, as were many americans at the time, and his language is filtered through that religiosity, but his actions and intent were clearly the only morally correct response to chattel slavery
tbf, he had a good reason to go insane. the government didn't do anything about slavery for its first ~90 years except compromises.
The times he lived in were crazy, you could say he was simply too sane for his time.
John Brown had balls of steel and gave his life to do what no one else had the courage to do
goddame right
My hero.
Top man, hard as nails, game as a lion and one of the very few from then who kept his integrity the right side of history simply one of god's finest soldiers right up there with Moses
thats pretty tough bro
Right up there with the World Trade Center Terrorists. Kill thousands of innocent Americans to achieve your political goals. That was John Brown's m.o. Massacre innocent people like the Black train conductor. The first victim of the Harper's Ferry Raid. Supporters of John Brown are as savage as he was. How many innocent people would have been slaughtered if Colonel Robert E. Lee and the Marines had failed to stop this blood-thirsty s.o.b.
An actual FREEDOM FIGHTER.
Hero. The correct answer is that he is a hero.
No way he's a hero .he has blood on his hands. For the people who died in the civil war.
@@rickyj5547 go back to sleep rick
@@rickyj5547 that kind of thinking let slavery to go on a long while
@@rickyj5547 sorry to tell you this but killing slave owners is a good thing. Also his body count is only like 7.
Imagine leading one of the most productive battles in history and ending the war months to years ahead because of his actions and only 7 people die. That man not only is a hero but held back a lot more than he should have.
Facts!
I'm disappointed you didn't mention my home town, Chambersburg, PA. John lived in town for several months under an assumed name. Here, he met Frederick Douglas, and tried to convince him to join him on his raid on Harper's Ferry. Chambersburg is also famous for being the only northern town destroyed by the Confederates during the war. Interestingly, a few years ago, on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, a Lincoln impersonator was in town, and met the current Mayor. The Mayor tried to make a joke by saying to "Lincoln", "Where were you when we needed you? The town got burned down!" "Lincoln" responded, "There were many towns destroyed during that horrible war." The Mayor tried to argue with him, that Chambersburg was the only northern town destroyed. "Lincoln" responded, "Every town that was destroyed- North and South- was an American town." That response was so perfect that I'm sure Lincoln himself would have approved.
Yes John Brown , his sons and supporters slaug:htered 5 pro slavery White men with swords 😂😂
They deserved it
So many stories that make up our history that we owe to those before us to preserve and share at scale and especially our children.
I was born in Torrington CT
Read The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
This video is SO GOOD. There are not many documentaries with a single narrator that can hold a teenager's attention for 15 minutes.
Yes he's one of my heroes as a black man I put him up there along with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X!
I'm a white dude and John brown makes me feel less shitty. At least there was someone who went against the grain. I love how he's not perfect. My dad has his bias but he HATED cops and always told me about how black men get fucked. We call it the "good Ole boy" routine. It is still prevalent. Most drug laws are bullshit to keep non violent offenders imprisoned and enslaved working for wages in the CENTS for PRIVATE PRISONS. It's bullshit. But this is the age of info transparency and the evil doers will reap what they sow, by God.
He was a Human with a kind heart believing that all humans should have the right to live free! I admire him!!
All humans except that ones that he killed. They only had a right to die.
I admire him, too.
@@le-chevalier-renaud he didn’t kill any humans, he killed slave owners and supporters
@@le-chevalier-renaud for keeping slaves, yeah
"...His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine - it was as the burning sun to my taper light - mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him." - Fredrick Douglas
Too me Capt. John Brown is the definition of "One man's terrorist, is another man's freedom fighter."
For while his goal to bring about the destruction of the vile and evil Institution of Slavery was noble and righteous to me. His methods where savage and brutal to others.
Nevertheless to me Capt. John Brown and the Nineteen men he lead to Harper's Ferry will always be Heroes for the Noble Cause of Freedom.
th-cam.com/video/bSSn3NddwFQ/w-d-xo.html
That's an incredibly powerful quote from such a powerful figure. Wow. I could die today having received that kind of praise from such a man.
That quote reminds me of the Kapernick knee. One man takes a knee to protest the tactics of police on minorities and all his fellow black teammates stand and watch too chickenshit and worried about their money for a cause that directly affects them.
He wasn’t fighting people that had morals in his eyes and he fought for a cause of such high morality that he died physically but he is remembered in Britain by our children as well as adults he is my hero along with other great men and women that died for a cause of justice for all
@@alundavies8402 many have throughout history and he will be remembered for that as the years go on the noise disappears and you are left with the distilled moral legacy of these events
@@alundavies8402 same as how many now see 9/11 as a tragedy of more than a single event but one with motivations that came from years of bloodshed and tyranny in the Middle East caused by the us and soviets these nuances become more clear as history gets older
John Brown is a hero and a model of moral justice period. He met the violence and evil of slavery with the only thing that could destroy it....violence against the very ones responsible for such evil.
I love you Mr. John Brown for sacrificing your life for me
American hero, for sure - There are few people as willing to fight and die for their convictions, and the wellbeing of their fellow man, as the great John Brown.
You're a great teacher! This helped educate me a lot. Thank you!
Hero
The fact there is any debate on this is astounding
I love the way this guy reads the narration. It's marvelous and sarcastic but solemn.
Very good,,, been to Harper's ferry, many times,,, not much has changed, armory location has a marker ,,was a true start ,,for a being of the civil war,
What an amazing video, both content and presentation. Fascinating stuff
Hero , completelly , an auténtic real Hero, I'm his fan, greetings from Mexico
This was a great video! More about John Brown!
While he was never a slave, he lived in a reality where that kind of suffering was somehow meant to be celebrated, and that if nothing else drove him mad, but instead of doing nothing he chose to do something against lawful evil.
The best 14+ minutes of a short story of John Brown I ever saw on TH-cam!! Sir, your delivery really made this video great. Thank you.
Sorry sorry. I digress. John Brown beliefs are way to complicated in his life, he believed- You live by the sword, you die by the sword!
To be clear - this is excellent. For the mistakes listed, it is still fantastic.
Most importantly, by the time of the operation, it was a martyr operation. Brown knew that he couldn't win. His men said so when he announced it to them. So did Douglass when he refused to join with Brown in the HR raid (and Shields Green announced that he would go with the old man). But Douglass it as a "perfect steel trap." At that meeting, in a quary at Chambersburg PA, Brown told Douglass "I need you to control buzzing wasps. Then, and crucially, Brown brought along a carpet bag filled with documents delineating the role o the secret 6, rich white abolitionists from Boston and NY who were the financial backers of the operations (thus exposing the org as coherent, committed and supported - not just the work of a Charlie Manson like figure). Brown's opposition to a group of men planning a rescue mission for Brown also speaks to his intentions, that the raid itself was predictably going to fail -- and it was the trial, the press attention, the controversy stirred up in he national press - he tight spot the raid put the Republicans, and he rump whigs in - . He turned the trial on its head. The trial wasn't about Brown, but slavery. And Brown won that trial. Violence is legittimate when the harm done is sufficiently anti-human. And Brown's actions clarified that question. Offficially he waas found guilty of treason against the state of VA (which he never swore allegiance to). 18 months later the men who literally convicted Brown of treason against their state, committed treason against the USA - which they did swear allegiance to.
No mention of what Brown was doing (with his family) in North Elba NY before he went to KS? A: Brown, his wife, several of his children and others were working with runaway slaves and Free Blacks to build a viable farming community (near Lake Placid NY) for these oppressed people. Takeaway - It was about improving the human condition for Brown - not just a bunch of killing. #2 - where is the the evidence of a "frenzy" by Brown upon hearing of Sumner's beating. Other sources say Brown didn't hear of the beating - not enough time had passed, telegraph wasn't the busy and Brown didnt have access to the telegraph that quickly to hear of Sumner's beating, then run off to Lawrence with the Pottowatamie Rifles, then back S. to the creek for the killings. #3 Brown only too able bodied men from those cabins and they were also the residences of the men that were destroying the Brown sons crops, nursery and other property in preceeding weeks and months in low-level war between Bushwhackers and Jayhawks. #4 Again, 17 year old "boy" (most thought 17 was adult age in late 1850s), and men were killed away from cabins, the bodies were not found on the steps the next day - but off down the trail. The massacre was brutal and immoral -- no need to lie about the facts of the matter. Just let the facts stand on their own. So, #5 also include the overall deaths, wounded and missing numbers from 1854 to 1/1/1860 in Kansas and code by Pro-slavery and anti-slavery assailants. The data are clear. The pro-slavery faction did more killing of unarmed prisoners and un-involved civilians than John Brown, than orgs and people associated with him (say Pottowatamie rifles), abolitionists, or Free Staters. We know about Brown because the Whie Supremaists got to write the history - not because his violence was uniquely beyond the pale in Bloody Kansas. The facts are more important than the propaganda.
I knew before it was over with reading your post you were going to bring skin color into it. Something tells me you yourself are white I’m know if you’re white or black or whatever I know this though doesn’t working with us anymore. Call us racist call Alisa haters or whatever you want. It’s not gonna change we can see what’s happening just like the other day a little six-year-old girl getting shot by no good N….. . If that doesn’t prove my point, I don’t know what does.
Either way, John Brown used Xanatos Gambit (win-win situation in any direction) intentionally or unintentionally.
A. After raid, lead a slave revolt with many
B. Captured and executed; but be memorialized for abolitionist cause whereas becoming a spark for the American Civil War to end slavery for good
Amazing documentary video - sooooo well made. I love it!
This is phenomenally done. Thank you.
John Brown growing his beard out to embody Moses is incredible especially when you see his impact in retrospect.
Hero of course. Few today have his courage 💪💙
As a Canadian i find this wildly fascinating
Damn right...a HERO!!🙏
Thank you, Mr. Brown!💛
John Brown was a rebel with A CAUSE; though a bit unorthodox, he initiated a fight for freedom that was a constant flame that burned in the torcher hearts of the enslaved. He was determined and passionate. Some may even say obsessive. It was a seed in him that would grow but not fully blossom to its potential, but a seed that never died. Love him or hate him, he was a fearless, focused revolutionary who was more than willing to shed his own blood to break the chains of bondage.
Great video!
What a fascinating and amazing man. He was a tragic figure that became bigger than life.
John Brown Was italian 🇮🇹
Thank u John brown may God rest and bless your soul you did the right thing despite what historians said
He’s a hero, thank JB
In Kansas John Brown has big respect. He had sculpture there and in Topeka there is the (I think World Famouse) famouse mural "THE TRAGIC PRELUDE" by John Steuart Curry. The Kansas University supporters (Jayhawkers) use the John Brown symbols against the Missouri University supporters in the stadium. Kansas became free state against the slavery system state Missouri proslavery bushwackers.
John Brown had lion's share in the triumph of the free state settlers in the Bleeding Kansas.
minute 2:30 should read "..... rite of purification" , not "right"
Its virtually impossible not to think of Brown as a hero. Objectively however, its almost as hard not to apply the standard academic definition of terrorist to his actions at Harper's Ferry and its even more difficult to not call him crazy. His beliefs weren't crazy, but the notion that he was going to successfully seize all the weapons there, start a massive slave revolt, and make himself the new governor of Virginia does not sound like the plan of someone whose elevator goes all the way to the top. The fact that Fredrick Douglass doesn't join him says something. I can imagine him telling Brown, "Look bro, we're on the same team and all, but this plan you just told me is totally insane. It will never work. I'm out."
Well said. I believe John Brown's heart was in the right place but his actions at Pottawatomie Creek (we're not one of his victims was a slave owner) cement same as a bad guy in my personal opinion. The ultimately did more harm than good to his cause.
I hope to be like John Brown a man of action rather than words
My third generation grandfather was a Quaker and abolitionist. He supplied John Brown with the weapons used in the raid. Always thought it was interesting that a non violent Quaker knew that the abolitionist movement and the evils of slavery was much more important than his own personal convictions. In my eyes, he will always be a hero.
Well, I’m sure you think John Brown was a killer you sound like a leftist. As far as your grandfather, he was a hypocrite, a quaker in one hand, and a Terrorist in another!
I bet your thrice great grandfather saw slavery and knew just as brown that no matter what personal conviction and morals that slavery was a sin that would strangle those in slavery til all was left was husks of man
I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture by Professor David Blight. Brandon you did an excellent job with the cinematic graphics. Thank you so much for putting this together on the legendary John Brown. 🙏🏾
Should have read in school
They were the inception to the Civil War; Brown and the others gave up their lives so people like me could be free. John Brown will always be my hero. Thank you John Brown!
He is a Super Hero .
Hero! R.I.P. John Brown( until that Great Gettin' up morning).🕊
Kind of sounds like Garrison Keillor after a good night's sleep and a cup of coffee.
Great video
Although the fight to end slavery or divide the Union in the US Senate began in the 1830s, the attack at Harper's Ferry could definitely been one of the many triggers that started the Civil War. Many of the states and territories gained after the Mexican American War, struggled to settle proper laws on slavery, as people who moved there had come from both the north and south. There was that quote from John Greenleaf Whittier... The city of Whittier, California in Los Angeles County was named after him. I've lived there. The main street in Historic Uptown is called Greenleaf. President Richard Nixon went to Whittier College here. There was also the famous October 1, 1987 Whittier-Narrows Earthquake (5.9) which I experienced when I was 10 years old.
Sending love from the 21st Century, John Brown.
St John Brown!!
This is a really good and well edited video. Nice job 👍
Excellent presentation. Personally i think he was a revolutionary. Greetings from venezuela
Great video. I use it with my social studies students. I'm pretty sure the professor is saying "rite of purification" not "right of purification" at 2:33.
Thank you for making this video which shows the real John Brown, The Good The bad and The ugly, in an age where saying anything that doesn't deify the man will get you falsely labeled as a racist or a lost causer.
I think these are some questions that many of the people across this world are going to asking themselves in the very near future. Is freedom worth fighting and dying for? I think we're going to get those answers. I would love to say I wish that John Brown could have found a better way to stand for his beliefs, but I'm not so sure. Just like today, they're not listening to anyone who disagrees with them.
Hero. If I am ever put in chains, may heaven deliver me with a righteous devil, not hand-wringing angels.
This was an excellent synopsis of John Brown and the light he shed on slavery in America. He is a national hero and yet his purpose and efforts are obfuscated by the systemic evil of this wicked nation. Thank you for sharing the truth.
Hero, next question
He kinda falls under both if you think about it. Because he was antiSlavery and trying to free the slaves but the civil war hadn't broke out yet and he was killing slave owners. He also was a slave owners or a person who owned slaves worst nightmare.
What a beautiful commentary;
Hell yeah! I'm impressed as well
James McBride novel The Good Lord Bird…
So glad Indiana Jones got into teaching.
Hero.
We named the capital of America for a man who trafficked his human slaves from one state to another to deny them their freedom when they became eligible under one state's laws. Meanwhile the man who said enough we can't be the slave nation of the world gets hanged and forgotten.
John Brown Was German 🇩🇪
Fun fact Lewis Leary was the husband to Mary Patterson who later became Mary Patterson Langston who’s grandson was the great poet Langston Hughes they said that when he was a baby Langston Hughes would use the shawl or blanket that Lewis took with when he joined John at Harpers ferry and it was returned with to Mary after Lewis was killed which she later would give to her grandson Langston so it’s bittersweet that she never got to see him again but stay loyal to him to the bitter end
Thank you John Brown.
Definitely a Hero
Hero ❤❤❤❤
He is a SAINT!!
Undeerstand your good intentions here - but JB himself was strongly anti-saint. One's relationship with god was 1-to-1, direct prayer and connection, no parasites collecting taxes from you and tellingyou what God really wants. God can be connected with directly - via prayer.
@@SN-xk2rl Amen. Also, saints can just mean people who follow God, but yeah they are definitely not people who are deceased that we pray to , or deceased people that pray for us. Like you said-we can do it ourselves. God desires a personal relationship with all of His followers aka saints.
Hero
John Brown Was French 🇫🇷
"A enslaved that kill his owner, kills for self-defense"
-Luís Gama
I think it is shortsighted to mention the caning of Charles Sumner (22 May 1856) as a catalyst for the Pottawatomie massacre (24 May 1856) while not mentioning the sacking of Lawrence (21 May 1856).
2:32--It should be "RITE of purification."
My one gripe about this otherwise balanced video is that John Brown was not universally lauded by Northern abolitionists. Nathaniel Hawthorne who is arguably the most famous abolitionists in American history, said after John Brown's death; "never was a man more justly hanged"
biggest chad of all time
The narrator sounds like Dr. David Blight.
I’m here for class anyone know what constitutes terrorism
I consider him an American hero! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I wonder why they never taught us about John Brown in school .?
HERO!
Both?
John Brown, the "Hero" who fought for Black Americans. Forever a Legend!
How did he fail?
Yet his soul is marching on
I personally don't think that being a terrorist and being a hero are mutually exclusive. Just because you're a terrorist doesn't mean you're not the good guy.
Uh, no. A terrorist is a terrorist. Thankfully he failed and paid the price.
@@zacharyking900 that's funny. You realize America was literally founded on terrorism, right? Terrorists are revolutionaries that lost, therefore didn't get to write history. If England had won, George Washington would have been considered a traitor and terrorist, not the father of a nation.
@@zacharyking900 What do you mean he failed? Sure he failed his primary goals but his ideas ultimately succeeded, a slave free America and objective improvement.
Both. Both is good.
SUPER HERO!
well both, right?
John Brown offered himself up as a living sacrifice for what he believed in, just like Jesus Christ. No wonder it struck such a resonant chord within our Christian nation. John Brown was a man of action, and he was sick and tired of all this talk and compromise around the slavery issue - he had the courage and moral conviction to tackle it head on - with action.
make the utmost of your defeat, comrades
Hero without a doubt. Any other conclusion is that of a slaver.
Me , after watching this I would say Hero , and I have I think been educated I knew little or nothing on JB.
Imagine what the world would have looked if the rebellion after Harper's Ferry was successful.
Unfortunately an ill-trained guerrilla force would have not fared well against the US armed forces. Now if he had managed to get support of a foreign power, let's say Britain through Canada, it would have been different.
Britain would never have done anything of the sort
1. They didn’t help the Union during the actual civil war
2. The British upper classes actually favored the confederacy
3. The Crimean war had just ended and the British public was against war at the time
4. The British would not want to alienate the other major English speaking power
@jb76489 well. The confederacy wasn't a thing yet when Harper's Ferry happened. If anything my reasoning was "the British Empire would have sought out any way to undermine the growing American power (which is why they favoured the Confederacy in the first place. That, and low prices for the raw materials the Confederacy provided)" but this would have worked with many other foreign powers. France could have, potentially, stepped in, as they did in Mexico.
Not really. Before John Brown where to get any kind of foreign support he would have needed the slaves of Virginia to come and join him which was part of the plan... yet, not a single slave did join him, and the fact that a free black man was the first of the 6 civilians killed by him and his men didn't help his cause either.
John Brown was a true Christian, that's all.
Yes.
A True American Christian Patriot.
Absolute legend. Brass balls. Rest In Peace hero. Some men talk hot air, some act.
A hero.
Good video but the narrators tone is off. Tone should be more in favor of Browns heroics. There is nothing up for debate here other than Brown was a BAMF.
My ancestor was shot riding with John
Debtor's* rite*
John Brown, Crazed Terrorist or American Hero?
*YES*
Both.
Why not both? Shouldn't slave owners feel terror?
This was great! Thanks