[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
Many meetings and events were held in Brown\u2019s memory throughout the North. Black Americans played a major role in organizing and holding these meetings, and one such example of this occurred in Boston on December 2: \u201cThe mood was somber and funereal. To them it was a day of fasting and of prayer. Many of them wore crepe on their arms. . .some of the crepe arm-bands were decorated with rosettes or pictures of John Brown.\u201d Black-owned shops were shuttered and closed in observance of Martyr\u2019s Day [1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Image – Newspaper – %22The Execution of John Brown%22″ _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] “The Execution of John Brown,” New York Illustrated News, Dec. 10, 1859. Image courtesy of Periodicals Collection, West Virginia State Archives<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n That evening in Boston, a \u201cstanding-room only\u201d meeting was held at Tremont Temple, with a crowd of \u201c3,000 gathered outside.\u201d Speakers included William Lloyd Garrison, James Freeman Clarke, and J. Sella Martin. \u201cTelling the crowd that he fully endorsed Brown\u2019s course, Martin said that the only difference between Brown and patriots of the Revolutionary War was that his program was designed to help black men\u201d [2]<\/a>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Another predominantly Black meeting was also held at the Twelfth Street Baptist Church that same evening. This meeting followed three earlier meetings held there that same day, and \u201cwas itself part of a continuous prayer meeting which had begun the night before and would not end until the following day. The speakers at the various events included Leonard A. Grimes, the church\u2019s pastor, Charles Lenox Remond, and William Cooper Nell, all of whom attended Colored Conventions” [3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Image – Engraving of Tremont Temple” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] Engraving of the first Tremont Temple in Boston, Massachusetts. Published in The Boston Directory for the year 1851. George Adams, Boston 1851 appendix p.68. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Image – William Cooper Nell” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] William Cooper Nell, American abolitionist. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Other ceremonies were held throughout New England, including one sponsored by The Union Anti-Slavery Society at the Shiloh Presbyterian Church in New York City, where Henry Highland Garnet was pastor, with editor Rev. Charles Ray and Rev. Amos Beman, convention leaders all, in attendance. In his eulogy for Brown, Garnet stated:<\/p>\n \u201cIn the signs of the times, I see the dreaded truth\u2026.\u2018For the sins of this nation there is no atonement without the shedding of blood.\u2019 If it must come O God! prepare us to meet it. The nation needed to see a picture of the future of slavery and its ends and methinks God has been pleased to draw it in crimson lines. Americans, Patriots, Christians, Tyrants, look upon it and be instructed\u201d [4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Black men were not the only ones to respond to the raid and Brown\u2019s execution. Black women abolitionists, after Brown\u2019s execution, \u201craised money to send to Brown\u2019s widow along with letters of condolence and expressions of admiration for her fallen husband.\u201d [5]<\/a><\/p>\n Mary Brown wrote a letter from the Brown homestead in North Elba, published on February 11, 1860 (dated December 27, 1859) in The Weekly Anglo-African <\/em>thanking members of the relief committee who have aided her and her family, as well as the families of those who died during the raid or were executed for their involvement, addressing them as \u201cMuch beloved and respected friends.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n There were also violent responses to the raid by both Black and white Americans. After the raid took place, \u201cjust a week [later], Harpers Ferry experienced an unprecedented number of fires. Five fires occurred on local plantations. The properties of three of the jurors during the trial were also subject to arson. Numerous slave owners found their wheat, supply yards, stables, and haystacks ablaze.\u201d Although it has never been proven, it has long been assumed that these acts of resistance were those of enslaved and free Black residents of Harpers Ferry [6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Image – Newspaper – Matayrs Day” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] Martyr’s Day and Garnet Weekly Anglo-African 1859 Part 1. Image courtesy of Black Abolitionist Papers. Click to read in full and view larger<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Image – Henry H Garnet” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] Henry Highland Garnet. Image courtesy of valleynews.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Garnet, well known for his militant abolitionism, \u201ctwo weeks after the raid\u2026commented that the raid might have been successful if only \u2018a box of matches [were placed] in the pocket of every slave, and then slavery would be set right.\u2019\u201d Acts of resistance such as arson and the (likely poisoning of farm animals belonging to white farmers, continued into December. On December 6, 1859, Robert E. Lee wrote that \u201creports of alarm still come in from Harpers Ferry.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>There was large white backlash, particularly in Virginia, since \u201cthe selling of slaves rose substantially.\u201d After the raid occurred, \u201censlaved men and women suspected of associating with Brown were arrested and even lynched.\u201d Douglass, fearing that his own connections to Brown would be discovered, fled to Europe and remained there until April 1860 [7]<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the Civil War had begun in earnest, Garnet became a recruiting agent for the Union Army. During a meeting in 1863 at his church, Garnet evoked the memory of Brown:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cJoin the armies of the United States and, in the language of old John Brown, who frightened Virginia to the core, march through and through the heart of the rebellion\u201d [8]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Credits & References” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Credits” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Created by Jessica Thelen, PhD student in English, for P. Gabrielle Foreman’s ENGL\/HIST 677 class, Spring, 2019. Edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”References” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [1] <\/a>Quarles, Benjamin.\u00a0Allies For Freedom: Blacks and John Brown.\u00a0<\/i>Oxford University Press, 1974, p. <\/span><\/a>125.\u00a0<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Quarles 125.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Quarles 126.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ofari, Earl.\u00a0\u201cLet Your Motto Be Resistance\u201d: The Life and Thought of Henry Highland Garnet.<\/i> Beacon Press, 1972, p. <\/span>107.\u00a0<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Jackson, Kellie Carter.\u00a0Force And Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence.<\/i> University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020, p.\u00a0<\/span>116.\u00a0<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Jackson 127.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oldsite.coloredconventions.org\/john-brown\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/32\/2019\/05\/Execution-of-Brown-300x203.jpg\")
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Credits<\/h3>\n
References<\/h3>\n