At
a time when white supremacy poses an
existential threat to society,
we need the spirit of Malcolm X, and we need
more white
co-conspirators like John Brown.
In
his commencement address at Howard
University,
President Joe Biden called white supremacy
a “poison” and “the
most dangerous terrorist threat to our
homeland.” The speech came
days after the birthday of the
abolitionist John Brown, who was born
May 9, 1800, and days before the birthday
of the legendary Black
leader Malcolm X, who was born May 19,
1925. Both men knew that white
supremacy was the problem, and they were
killed trying to dismantle
whiteness
and save
America.
And we are still dealing with the problem
today.
The
family of Malcolm X has sued the FBI, the
NYPD and other government
agencies for conspiring
to
assassinate
the leader in 1965. Under J. Edgar Hoover.
The FBI formed COINTELPRO
to discredit and disrupt the civil rights
movement, and “Prevent
the RISE OF A ‘MESSIAH’ who could unify,
and electrify the
militant black nationalist movement.”
Malcolm
- who was forming Black coalitions across
America and the world - had
planned to take America to the United
Nations
and charge the country with human rights
violations for its
mistreatment of Black people. He made the
“Afro-American problem”
an international problem.
“Sometimes,
I
have dared to dream … that one day,
history may even say that my
voice - which disturbed the white man’s
smugness, and his
arrogance, and his complacency - that my
voice helped to save America
from a grave, possibly even fatal
catastrophe,” Malcolm
X
wrote.
And
Malcolm had some things to say about John
Brown, the abolitionist
driven by his Christian faith, personal
convictions and love of
humanity to end slavery. Brown was not a
white savior; he was a
co-conspirator who helped to liberate
Black people. After coming into
the public eye during the “Bleeding
Kansas” civil war - which
determined whether that state would enter
the union as a free or
slave state - Brown led a raid with white
and Black folks on
Harpers Ferry,
a federal armory in Virginia (now West
Virginia) in the hopes of
sparking a movement to liberate the
enslaved.
John
Brown
was hanged
in 1859 for murder, insurrection and
treason. Although they killed
Brown, slavery remained an unresolved
issue only to be litigated on
the battlefield 16 months later. And as he
predicted in his last
words, ending slavery and purging the land
of its crimes would
be
bloody.
“You
had better - all you people of the South -
prepare yourselves for a
settlement of this question. It must come
up for settlement sooner
than you are prepared for it, and the
sooner you commence that
preparation, the better for you. You may
dispose of me very easily -
I am nearly disposed of now, but this
question is still to be settled
- this Negro question, I mean. The end of
that is not yet,” Brown
said.
Black
folks loved John Brown. “He done more in
dying than 100 men would
in living,” said Harriet
Tubman,
who thought Brown was the greatest
white
man
who ever lived. And he died only 16 months
before the Civil War. “If
John Brown did not end the war that ended
slavery, he did, at least,
begin the war that ended slavery,” said Frederick
Douglass.
Viewed
as a martyr and hero by many, John Brown
was a lunatic terrorist to
others. After all, a white man acting in
the interests of the
enslaved to overthrow the plantation
police state was the greatest
fear for white supremacist Southerners.
“They’re trying to make
it look like he was a nut, a fanatic,” Malcolm
X
said.
“But they depict him in this image because
he was willing to shed
blood to free the slaves. And any white
man who is ready and willing
to shed blood for your freedom - in the
sight of other whites, he’s
nuts.”
Malcolm
X suggested that if John Brown were still
alive, he might have been
accepted into his OAAU,
the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
And Malcolm viewed Brown as
the standard for white ally-ship. “If a
white man wants to be your
ally, what does he think of John Brown?”
Malcolm asked. “You know
what John Brown did? He went to war. He
was a white man who went to
war against white people to help free
slaves.
“So
if we need white allies in this country, we
don’t need those kind
who compromise. We don’t need those kind who
encourage us to be
polite, responsible, you know,” Malcolm
added. “We don’t need
those kind who give us that kind of advice.
We don’t need those
kind who tell us how to be patient. No, if
we want some white allies,
we need the kind that John Brown was, or we
don’t need you. And the
only way to get those kind is to turn in a
new direction.”
W.E.B.
Du
Bois
believed the memory of John Brown was a
“mighty warning to his
country,” and that the white abolitionist
felt in his soul the
wrong and danger of American slavery.
According to Du Bois, “John
Brown taught us that the cheapest price to
pay for liberty is its
cost today. The building of barriers
against the advance of
Negro-Americans hinders but in the end
cannot altogether stop their
progress.”
Over
a century-and-a-half after his death, John
Brown resonates in a
nation that still has not addressed slavery,
racial injustice and
white supremacy.
“I
think that the way most of us, certainly
white America has been
educated is to consider issues of violence
against the Black
community - whether it’s enslavement,
police violence, street white
supremacist violence, health care - I
think were trained to see these
as Black issues,” Martha Swan, the founder
and executive director
of John
Brown Lives!,
told theGrio.
The Westport, N.Y., nonprofit organization
uses education, history
and the arts to achieve freedom, human
rights and climate justice.
“One
of the really important lessons of John
Brown is he believed it was
born on the backs of Black people, but it
was the duty of white
people to resist and work to abolish,” Swan
added.
John
Brown Lives! has continued the century-old
tradition of John
Brown
Day,
started by Black Philadelphians Dr. Jesse
Max Barber and Dr. T.
Spotuas Burwell, who laid a wreath on
Brown’s grave in the
Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York
to honor “this great
friend of the race.”
Swan
noted that John Brown was not only
antislavery, but he was also an
egalitarian. “He was a friend to and with
Black people. He believed
in human equality and the dignity of all
people, and that made him
exceptional even among abolitionists.”
At
a time when white supremacy is playing for
keeps and trying to return
the country to the good ol’ days for white
America - with the
repression of Black people and other people
of color, women, LGBTQ+
people and other marginalized communities -
white America needs more
white folks like John Brown.
“He
really forces the question of what is
violence,” Swan noted of
Brown, particularly within the context of
the violence America faces
today through the laws that are enacted and
the toxic rhetoric that
is disseminated throughout society. “For
most of his life he was
engaged in peaceful nonviolence,” Swan
added. “Whose violence do
we condemn and whose violence do we condone
or celebrate?”
John
Brown gave his life for justice and raised
his children to be
antiracists. White people today must learn
some lessons from him if
they want America to survive.
