American Experience; John Brown's Holy War; Interview with historian James Brewer Stewart, 5 of 5

so to speak oh yes ms lewis yes it's bleak oh yes john brown was a very exceptional way for a very unique and a very special man first time's yes okay i didn't get out of the us is not among other well to

do john brown was truly an exceptional measure and the reason that he was is because he dared to understand america inmate extraordinarily visionary way he dared understand america as america's the united states that have a national problem a national disease called slavery and that national disease called slavery was more deeply the disease of white supremacy many other shared his vision this was certainly no secret african americans it was not a secret to some white americans who are members of the average dispute but john browne in certain ways was able to live this understanding more intimately with people of different skin color i was able to see the world i think more

clearly from the point of view of the great war that the country had betrayed professions of liberty and barbara's practices of skin slipped and discrimination in the fundamental denials of human rights and the declaration of independence that give the united states its promise david greene gave it from his point of view it's christian reason for being to see that read deeply into both the promise and the tragedy of american life is to do something very special special to would be brown's capacity to be able to connect this vision to the people in the world whose lives he touched i have thirty seconds yes or democrats realized that means exactly a joke at first part that yeah

you have to just look at them that was an exceptional well he's an exceptional person by any standard the colonel that exceptional life is found in his deep understanding about what was right about america and was wrong about america the right is its promise and its declaration of independence of the quality of the pursuit of happiness and for that time the deeper foundation that brown believed in so deeply of its christian foundations the mosaic law in christ sacrifice for the redemption was those brown were the promise of american life

seeing those promises that deeply a few other americans could understand with his deep understanding of the evil of slavery how slavery compromised on how slavery ruined how white supremacy and white bigotry destroyed the promise of american life whatever else can be said about what john brown did for good or for evil for writer for wrong this fundamental understanding of good deep deep trouble of a land of liberty based on a land of slavery based on a world of whiteness are all white men are critical fundamental insight into the nature of the united states which makes him very very it was

do people see these are figures the secret of john brown's power in his own time was to make you see yourself in him the puzzle for us today is that we still see ourselves and how we feel about race how we feel about violence how we feel about justice how we feel about desperation daring x determines much more than anything else i think how we're going to decide our moral position with respect to a man who was violent with respect to a man who took human life with

respect to a man who challenged fundamental assumptions on which the republican experiment was based those are fundamental challenges to our values brown lived a life in which he challenged the fundamental values of his contemporaries his reputation and arguably challenges are listed at that as a twitter questions ok where it stays in the time i thought i was oh i see okay we're going to try aussies are falling and other words capital and a lot of it's over five and then i can do a report the power

of john brown in his own time finally involved his being able to make people see themselves in him whatever one's position in the world john brown whether you were slave holder and lived in virginia and we're proud of it or whether you were a black man living in canada desperate having left america john brown meant something special and important to you because you changed your values assaulted join the basic levels of the problem of race in america and the problem of race in america implicated everyone whether they meant to see it in themselves or not john browne provoke them to see it in themselves so whether john brown was seen as a terrible terrible threat to the southern social order or whether he was seen as a great ennobling hero to black abolitionist and black activists everywhere the truth and brown is the truth that registers one's

own fundamental values about freedom about slavery about white supremacy and about equality the peak we were the only ones since the civil war on the horizon there's also a thousand he says that full power will maybe inevitable want to make an inevitable in the nightmares a politician's was the civil war the idea that this could happen that the republican experiment could be a disaster that the federal union the sacred constitution would not hold america the united states in one place that was the nightmare of politics for american politicians from the agent when he's honored thomas jefferson said with regard to the problem of slavery

were holding a wolf five years can't let go can't hang out the fear of civil war the impending idea of civil war is the great deep dark fears that haunted american politics throughout the whole of this period of time so john brown's not circling alone in anticipating the coming of civil war john brown is indeed radical because you prefer says what it means that the idea of a cataclysmic conflict the idea that it's written in god's book there has to be a terrible day of reckoning rather than fearing the disruption of union was to me what may pop politics for john brown solution the idea that somehow the great clarifying moment of violent confrontation whether that the slave insurrection whether that peaceable insurrection was good and proper with

faded was necessary was certainly what separated him from all those others who anticipate civil war but not in the same way that they're supposed to it's been banished