John Brown Today

Send us a text In this episode, Lou speaks with Dan Morrison, the founder of the John Brown Project and a documentary filmmaker from Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown’s birthplace. Morrison details his work, including a community arts project that produced a 21st-century remix of the Civil War era song, "John Brown's Body" and his current musical documentary, "Pushing the Rock," which examines systemic racism in America and features interviews with historical figures’ descendants and schola...

Send us a text In this episode, Lou breaks with the regular approach of this podcast to put a John Brown lens on pressing contemporary issues. He specifically addresses three main topics, arguing why John Brown would be an anti-Zionist due to the movement's oppressive colonial practices and its perceived anti-biblical, racialized nature; critiquing the notion that the recently murdered Charlie Kirk was a Christian martyr because of his white nationalist views and opposition to the Black civil...

Send us a text In this episode, Lou interviews the preeminent cultural historian of the 19th-century USA, David S. Reynolds. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Reynolds' landmark biography, John Brown Abolitionist. Reynolds opens by describing his most recent project, the forthcoming Two Ships (Penguin), and then revisits the writing of John Brown Abolitionist, rehearsing some key themes from the book as well as reflecting on his background and methodology a...

Send us a text In this episode, I am inviting you on a peculiar historical tour of the term, "Secret Six." While John Brown students are accustomed to seeing this term used to speak of Brown's key supporters, this episode is about the origin of the term and its significance in the literature about Brown. As you'll discover, while the "tour" of "Secret Six" is full of trivial and interesting cases where the term has been used since the nineteenth century, it was not really applied to Bro...

Send us a text In this episode, Lou shares an extended reflection on Malcolm X that is attuned to the memory and legacy of John Brown. Going beyond easy, almost cliché use of Malcolm's words, Lou draws on his background as a Malcolm X biographer to reflect upon both the strategic and personal approach of the memorable black leader to John Brown's legacy. This May 19, 2025 is the centennial of Malcolm X's birth. With one foot in the antebellum era and another foot in the Civil Rights era...