Chapter 6 “John Brown and Abraham Lincoln” The Invisibility of Antiracism American textbooks underplay racism and neglect racial idealism, or equalitarianism. John brown, an abolitionist gets very little mention in textbooks, and when he does, the events are very specific and misrepresented. Most students don’t even know who John Brown is, and his name is never chosen as a hero when students are asked this question, even though he helped free a great number of slaves. His story is as follows: He makes two appearances in textbooks at Pottawatomie, Kansas, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia. In Kansas, John Brown led a group of followers on a midnight raid in the proslavery town of Pottawatomie in retaliation to an attack from them on free-soil Lawrence, Kansas. Both the attack on Lawrence and the attack on Pottawatomie lead to deaths of the opposing side. In Harper’s Ferry, Brown and his followers attacked a federal arsenal in an attempt to seize weapons and give them to enslaved people in the hopes to start a slave uprising. He was defeated by Robert E. Lee and sentenced to hanging after being convicted of treason. The Treatment of John Brown in American Textbooks throughout the years: Crazy Less Crazy** 1890 to 1970: Insane Before 1890: Perfectly sane 2006 to Present: Insane After 1970: Regaining sanity **”Since Brown himself did not change after his death –except to molder more—his mental health in our textbooks provides an inadvertent index of the level of white racism in our society.” (p. 173) A laundry list of terms used to describe John Brown in textbooks: fanatical, iron-willed, obsessive, brooding , fiendish, dubious, insane “Just as textbooks treat slavery without much Racism, they treat abolitionism without much Idealism.”
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Chapter 6 “John Brown and Abraham Lincoln”
The Invisibility of Antiracism
American textbooks underplay racism and neglect racial idealism, or equalitarianism. John brown, an
abolitionist gets very little mention in textbooks, and when he does, the events are very specific and
misrepresented.
Most students don’t even know who John Brown is, and his name is never chosen as a hero
when students are asked this question, even though he helped free a great number of slaves. His
story is as follows:
He makes two appearances in textbooks at Pottawatomie, Kansas, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
In Kansas, John Brown led a group of followers on a midnight raid in the proslavery town of Pottawatomie in retaliation to an
attack from them on free-soil Lawrence, Kansas. Both the attack on Lawrence and the attack on Pottawatomie lead to deaths of
the opposing side.
In Harper’s Ferry, Brown and his followers attacked a federal arsenal in an attempt to seize weapons and give them to enslaved
people in the hopes to start a slave uprising. He was defeated by Robert E. Lee and sentenced to hanging after being convicted of
treason.
The Treatment of John Brown in American Textbooks throughout the years:
Crazy Less Crazy**
1890 to 1970: Insane Before 1890: Perfectly sane
2006 to Present: Insane After 1970: Regaining sanity
**”Since Brown himself did not change after his death –except to molder more—his mental health in our textbooks provides an inadvertent index of the level of
white racism in our society.” (p. 173)
A laundry list of terms used to describe John Brown in textbooks: