I used to picture myself as an adult as a politician. In high school as a debate kid, I would love the Saturday tournament because by the end I could get real “working man” with it and roll up my sleeves and cosplay as Bobby Kennedy. I was outspoken and brash in a way only a 16-year-old boy could be. Constantly getting things wrong, but bound to a sense of justice and trying to do right by those who weren’t given the same opportunity and those who were too ignorant but trying to learn to improve my own sort of political compass. I remember in freshman English we were having a “Socratic discussion” on Animal Farm (which Archer eloquently put it: Is an allegorical novella about Stalinism by George Orwell! And spoiler alert: It Sucks!) The discussion involved us all turning our desks into a circle and launching questions to talk through the book. I don’t remember the preceding question or comment, but I said, “What’s so bad about communism?” You could have heard a pin drop. My teacher looked at me like I had grown a second head. She launched into a long diatribe about the horrors of communism and the Cold War. I went home that week and asked my mom to find me a copy of the Communist Manifesto. I still have that beat-up copy with redlined pages somewhere on my bookshelf. That discussion, that moment, and that reaction helped lay more framework of my political identity.
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can 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.
I have spent a few days now trying to remember the week my 7th grade history teacher spent teaching us about John Brown. I remember other things from that time like how large my teacher was if memories serves me correctly, he was 6’6 and his chest was the size of a cut in half ACME barrel. He would go to the local McDonald’s once a week to get grease so he could make bio-diesel for his car. I can remember all that, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything other than him repeatedly saying “John Brown, John Brown” whenever he mentioned his name. I’ve forgotten so much about that class, but that name and rhythm are etched into my memory.
I wasted a lot of time in my high school on a bygone website of the younger years of the internet. Long forgotten, but much loved, was StumbleUpon. A website that you could select your interests and hit “Stumble” and end up in places online you didn’t realize could exist. It’s how I killed dozens, if not hundreds, of hours. I can no longer recall most of the websites I found, and from what I understand of the dead internet, they probably wouldn’t exist, and if they did, they would be filled with bots. One that I can recall is the Open Yale Courses. (It still exists!) It allows you to watch lectures from Yale professors. Whole classes online quite literally for the taking. As a high schooler, that was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. I tried several different lectures, mostly around history, but only one really stuck with me to revisit multiple times throughout my life. The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877, with Dr. David Blight. Not sure how many late nights, I would boot up my Xbox 360—Red Dead Redemption already in the drive—and flip on my laptop to the bookmarked link for Dr. Blight’s next lecture. I would make sure the TV was turned down low enough to hear the intellect coming through on my weakened computer speakers. A few years removed from the repetition of the John Brown, John Brown, and several lectures in. Dr. Blight began to lecture on John Brown. The admiration my middle school social studies teacher had for John Brown, that I recalled in the moment, was stymied for a time by Dr. Blight’s seemingly tepid introduction to John Brown. Heroic Revolutionary or Midnight Terrorist?
I didn’t think there was any doubt that John Brown was a hero. I understood that with the actions taken by Brown and his men in Bleeding Kansas and Harpers Ferry, they needed to be taken in context—but what was unheroic about seeing Man in bondage and being willing to sacrifice his life for their freedom?
The law's our yardstick, and it measures well
Or well enough when there are yards to measure.
Measure a wave with it, measure a fire,
Cut sorrow up in inches, weigh content.
You can weigh John Brown's body well enough,
But how and in what balance weigh John Brown?
-Stephen Vincent Benét (John Brown’s Body)
This is the quote that is used by Dr. Blight to introduce his students to John Brown. How do we weigh the life of someone seen to be sent by God? Not just in his own mind, not from the fire and brimstone of his sermons, but his actions. The deliberateness, the thought, the plan of what is needed to wash the sins of racism from this country. Is that not heroism? Laying down your life for the freedom of all Man? It went against the norms and customs of that time for the cause of abolition, but even in our time, to take life in the vein that John Brown did still gives people pause.
I imagine I am one of the few who allows John Brown to weigh on him. I don’t give much pause to his thoughts and actions. He did what had to be done. My white guilt manifests in my mind as constantly wanting to do more. I cannot accept that this is what America is resigned to being. I didn't think it was perfect before, but now we have a moment before us where the ugly undercurrent that has permeated American life is being laid bare once again.
Like in years following the Dred Scott decision, John Brown, and ultimately the Civil War & Civil Rights Amendments, through Brown vs. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Era, there was incredible fervor to end the abhorrence that was in place at the time—to end the expansion of slavery and ultimately the end of slavery. To integrate society and realize “Separate can never be equal”. To allow everyone to vote and end Jim Crow America. Moments of “Constitutional Crisis” breathe life into movements for freedom. We have an opportunity to correct the sins of the past by fighting now. That vile undercurrent, once again brought forth into the American Consciousness has stirred the hearth that smolders deep inside of me.
It burns for the fight for our better future. It reinforces I feel I am made for this. At least, I think I am. I am the guy you want when someone acts tough and condescending. I’ll call a spade a spade, and I can back it up with facts or fists. All my life, I have been desperately searching for what I am supposed to do. I’ve been scared for so long because I didn’t know. My best friends are blue-collar guys. They do honest, principled work making sure people have reliable houses, cars, and electricity. They’re teachers shaping young minds. There’s honor in that.
Rightfully, they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about John Brown. Their concerns are much more immediate; their day-to-day is much more about work to be done by helping people go about their day-to-day. I asked for more. It was in part thrust upon me. I remember a conversation on the precipice of law school with a friend who remembered ambitions of being a teacher. The third sentence out of his mouth was “You were never going to be a fucking teacher.”. There was an expectation to be Great. I’m not great. I’m just a guy. I want direction. I crave order. I have a great weight on my chest, and I don't know what will lift it. I think a lot of people have it. Those who don’t have maybe found their direction, but for a lot of us it is a weight that we try perilously to raise.
I have tried over and over again to find something to ease the heaviness. The tonnage on my chest that still persists after 2 college degrees, travel, a wife, a law degree, a good job, alcohol, recovery, and spirituality. All things that make me happy and proud and have drastically improved the quality of my life, things that allow me to write about and feel empathy or understanding for the plight of my fellow human, and for me, have more than diminutively hoisted the weight from my chest. Yet, the weight of John Brown persists.
That weight that I think many men of the generation after me have tried to relieve with resentments from “red-pilled” male culture. The Death of God has left many without direction. Where consumerism, dominance, and fear are used to try to lift their weights only adds to their misery.
Right now, when I stare at my ceiling at 2 am because I can’t sleep as I think about the headlong tumble into authoritarianism America is in. I think I can start filling it by being of service to others. They’re disappearing people, and I got this time, and by my own estimations, not doing enough. I can’t keep giving only money because I have bills to pay and a life to lead. As a larger, white man, my body and my time are what I have to give. I’ve signed up to volunteer with several local immigrant resources near me, and they either haven’t gotten back to me or their website says they don’t currently have any opportunities. I am taking that as a good sign—that they have so many people that they don’t need new volunteers at the moment. To think of it in the worst light, these groups are chilled from asking for volunteers as they deal with funding freezes or ICE actions.
Friends, I am not sure I have the right words, or if my words will do justice to the moment. People are being kidnapped in broad daylight by the United States government. Yes—a reality in the times before January 20, 2025, but the elation now seen, so publicly, is chilling. As the summer grows nearer and the days longer, the palpable joy that is normally felt in the air, like electricity, generated by the exhilaration of warmer weather has been displaced by the incontrovertible glee of the white men and women in power.
I am not sure what comes next. I try not to worry myself too often with the state of nations or lose sight of what control I can exert only being the circumference of my arms. There is a small, quiet comfort knowing that I am not alone and that throughout history, these regimes don’t last. People, ultimately, yearn for the freedom to be themselves. There are some whose yearning is so fierce, so intense, they’re thoughts of their own willingness to sacrifice themselves for the hope of tomorrow.
I had the pleasure of being in New York City last fall (read more about that here) but on that trip I had a chance to go to The Met. To be in the presence of artists renditions of John Brown. I felt a sense of smug pride. As a man who has adopted & been adopted by Kansas, what do these East Coast snobs know of John Brown? All their pearl-clutching, calls for norms to be respected. What do they know of Bleeding Kansas and the Sack of Lawrence?
I made myself feel better by thinking of all the folks who visit and get to feel the reverence of those paintings. That they feel the awesome weight of John Brown, and it doesn’t allow them to get up the same way again.
I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece, and short. I'm in a world of shit, yes, but I am alive. And I am not afraid. - Private James T. "Joker" Davis, Full Metal Jacket
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