John Brown - A Real and True Hero

 I first heard of John Brown when I was a little boy collecting action cards from the nickel machine in front of the 7-11 store within walking distance from my house.

Actually, these days, I would not call it walking distance for my two sons if they were the same age. (I think I was between the ages of six and ten. It was a long walk, maybe four miles one way, which covered a distance up the street, cut across some railroad tracks and through an orchard.

But back in those days, it was not an issue, and we made the walk, or sometimes a bike ride regularly. I discovered some cool collector's cards in this machine. You put in a nickel through one of those slide in things and out came five random cards.

The first ones I tried to collect were the Mars Attacks cards. For an eight year old, they were so cool. Martians invading earth, and destroying everything in their path. The artwork on the cards was very graphic and bloody. Sheesh, these days the establishment would be censoring the hell out of those cards. But not back then.

Sadly, I discovered them on the last run of the series, and one day I put my nickel in and something else came out. It was a random five card selection of the next collector cards series. Civil War cards.

But these cards were not fiction. They were historically accurate. Even so, the artwork was just as graphic and just as violent as anything fiction could dream up. So for an eight year old, they were cool enough, and I went ahead and collected them and eventually managed to get the entire set.

Civil War Card no. 1

And since the cards depicted historically accurate events, the card that was number ONE was a card that featured JOHN BROWN and his raid on Harper's Ferry to end slavery. On the back of the card, a newspaper article from the time described the event. 

I heard some old movies featured John Brown. I never saw them, but I'm glad to see there has been a recent TV movie and miniseries that included John Brown. Neither one was about him. The Good Lord Bird was more about a boy in a dress pretending to be a woman. 

Last night I saw Emperor and it was about a former slave named Shields Green. He had fought alongside Brown at Harpers Ferry, but escaped and avoided being captured. Or that's what the movie would have you believe. A quick Google search revealed he did not escape capture. But the retelling of true stories allow for "poetic license" which is fine. After all, it's something I did with my own historical novel John Dunn. It adds some flair. In Emperor, it made for a happy ending.

One day, I would like to see a fuller portrayal of this man, John Brown, and his real life and real heroic cause to end slavery. He gave his life for black people. I would think he would be more famous for that. Maybe even have a holiday named after him. Maybe one day there will be.