Nevertheless, after Walker's death, the professional radical Garrison published parts of the Appeal. That act, coupled with the fact that he pushed doctrines such as never joining political parties, urged fellow abolitionists not to vote and not participate in the American republic, makes Garrison --albeit in a limited way-- an anarchist of sorts. David Blight, professor of History and Black Studies at Amherst College, has gone as far as saying that Garrison's view of the American Constitution was that it constituted "a convenant with death" because it supported slavery. (1)

Quaker Garrison, however, was deeply imbued by the evangelical Christian tradition, and embraced non-resistance and pacifism to a point that --by the middle of the 1840s-- the daily emergencies in the lives of fugitive slaves could not tolerate. Too many blacks --the good intentions of the evangelical Christian tradition notwithstanding-- were being doctrinaired to death by what Garrisonianism dictated.

Today, the left includes some of the sweetest souls this side of Heaven, well-educated, experienced in the trenches, many having paid their dues in ways that remind one of the daytime mobbing of Garrison (October 21, 1835 in Boston)...when he was dragged through downtown streets, amidst cheering, coarse citizens, a rough rope around his waist.

Of course, the most severe beatings suffered by Garrison, Charles Sumner in the Senate (May 22, 1956), and many brave women (fighting prejudice on more than one front), arm-in-arm with "marginalized" minorities,...routinely...are not what most activists have had to endure within our lifetimes...routinely.

But even those who write and lecture exclusively on a virtual daily progressive basis deserve respect. Some of them have done so for years, and their well-earned reputations beg for deference. Special ones have been invaluable inspirations for the vast majority of activists.

Garrison --influenced by notions of the second Great Awakening-- was inspired early on by the (gradualist) concept that converting individuals to salvation can lead to the transformation of whole societies; this in spite of the Quaker aversion to treating blacks as equals. Ditto for many of his modern day counterparts alluded to above (vis-a-vis secular salvation).

But such gradualism --then and today-- is questionable in theory, weak in practice and fatally quieting to the conscience of both the "slaveholder" and all those who benefit from the status quo...in one way or another, "bro" or no.

To paraphrase Thomas Wentworth Higginson (someone who most activists may know only as the editor of Emily Dickinson's poems and/or the white centerpiece colonel of the first black regiment of the Civil War...in the horrid film Glory), "loud language was needed for those whose ears were stopped with Southern cotton." (2a) Something new was required.

Immediatism and the strong direct/confrontational language of David Walker were needed then, and are needed now.

Alan Watts once told me how the Buddha never meant for people to literally "give up all desire," but that establishing such an injunction/principle might have been mandatory in the face of excesses enveloping everyone at the time. Joseph Campbell's writings confirm that.

Former slaves branded the United States as a willful liar, shameless hypocrite and/or the deadliest enemy of the human race, and, then, acted upon those words/extreme views...risking much. Activists today are --too often-- walking the talk only within the parameters allowed. Not acting in response to any extreme sense of urgency. The depths of our depravity are allowed to grow with our timetable.

MANUMISSION

"David Young, an emancipated slave, had bourght his wife and six children. He paid for them $1265. He yet owes $110 for the last child. This he expects to pay this summer." (2b)

During the 19th century slaves could, with a strange twist in the concept of Reparations, look forward to the possibility of buying freedom from their Masters. And even among abolitionists, blacks had to consider the tenets of organizations like the American Colonization Society, which was laying the groundwork for slaves to be returned to Africa...if they were lucky enough to be freed. (3)

That was the "progressive" climate in which Garrison and Walker had to work. And it has its parallel today, of course.

Old-school reformists were typically low-keyed, confining work to their own localities, making minimal effort (or, more often, none at all) to "spread the word," move in significant solidarity with a broader base. National meetings/demonstrations were little more than intermittent, polite exchanges of views...with varying degrees of fire. All with virtually no wide or deep impact. Their inability to arouse opposition was a true measure of their lack of efficacy, a function of their marginalization.

Today we provoke some reactionary responses when we rile The Masters with our "marching in circles." But the moderation that prevails makes for safe passage on all counts for everyone*. It's instructive to note that ostracism from polite society was one of the crosses that abolitionists, as a rule, had to bear.

*Except for those who are suffering the most here and abroad.

The federalist era's abolitionist movement must be assessed a failure. Very important advances were made on the level of rescuing a handful of Negroes from bondage and educating those maligned people at places like New York's African Free School.

But Ira Aldridge (one of the more famous products of such attention) playing Othello at the Royal Theatre does not a free people make. Nor does book learning. Nor do belatedly donated schools for the masses in quiet corners of the country.

BEFORE BROWN'S BODY LAY
"A-MOULDERING IN THE GRAVE"

No, it took John Browns and David Walkers to break through the soft-crying pleas to others' sense of humanity, and overstate their case in words and actions...to assert their point. To overcome cotton in ears. To rise above those restricted by rigor mortisizing reflection. To get past those who were blocking the way, abolitionists "in it" only to exorcise personal devils. To advance.

Little did I know the History of Fence-Sitters a year ago, their many faces and angles of operation. Less did I know of what Walker and Brown and Tubman, et. al. had to do to move them.

Yet Brown, to the extent that he's portrayed at all, comes off today as a crazy in American textbooks, an extremist. (4) It's a measure of the failure I'm addressing that most activists I meet characterize him as such, focusing on
Pottawatomie/Harpers Ferry "atrocities," not on why he became a hero to blacks and nonslaveholding whites. Before 1890, by the way, JB was perfectly sane to judge by the texts in use. One would be hard put to even find a mention of David Walker in school texts. (5)

Our institutions do not encourage learning/retaining about the marvelous accomplishments of such glorious figures. Rather, to draw from John Taylor Gatto's view, our Prussian educational system --to cite just one example-- has a vested interest in compounding ignorance with ignorance, perpetuating whatever will bolster a fifth column opposing true democratic advance. (6)

No, we can't expect much that's radical to come from within. As the 19th century abolitionist James Russell Lowell suggested, "new occasions teach new duties and time makes ancient good uncouth...." (7)

The positive contributions, gains of well-respected progressives are not enough. In fact, too much adoration of them and their works is holding us back.

If it were just some minority segment of the population which was being affected, a white citizen could very well adopt a 19th century stance, devoid of moral scruples, humanity.

But, today, the momentum of our ecocide demands that everyone become an abolitionist of sorts...of a very radical stripe.

When Mitchel Cohen says, "I look forward to the utter destruction of the apparatus of death known as Amerika ­ not the people, not the beautiful land, but the machinery of empire, the State, capitalism, religious bigotry that in many ways dominates everyday life, greed, and the lies that enable it to continue, sucking us into being complicit with this awful history ... as it is repeated today" he points to work that many activists will easily embrace on some level. (8)

The potential catch comes, the potential for movement-breaking reservation, when one considers Cohen's "not the people" phrase, so commonly invoked in progressive circles.

It IS the people who must be "destroyed," albeit not by slitting throats in the dark of a Pottawatomime night. They MUST be addressed...in no uncertain, accommodating terms...running the risk of making them enemies.

If one cannot find a way to circumvent Greg Moses' "there's no way to get around white folks in the
U.S." (http://www.counterpunch.org/moses11262004.html) by honoring the electoral process...then we must open up to maddening alternatives.

The easy way out right now is to bury one's head in the sands of old paradigms or to psychologically cave in to the daunting challenge. To embrace what's popular, easy socializing to easy-listening NPR/Democracy Now theme music.

I submit that it's too late to avoid violence. Part of the reason is that we don't even talk about John Brown these days. Not intelligently. Not openly. Not from an informed stance. Hardly at all.

There has been a cover-up of sorts (dis)respecting John Brown, the man whose (countless) black contemporaries claimed aroused them out of apathy and indifference. A man absolutely beloved by the fearless leaders of abolitionism, a martyr who bled light into a collective mind...which had dwelled much too long in selfish/impotent darkness, self-destructive insanity.

A man who dealt with what we refuse to deal with head-on, expeditiously. See CounterPunch for a quick take on parallels with today.

"You're not John Brown," colleagues tell me. Right. And not just 'cause I'm as scared of the scaffold as Woody Allen or anyone else. However,...I can be a modern day counterpart to David Walker with this article.

Regardless, you --since the truth must be told now-- are obliged to march or slink into The Great Black Way around Harper's Ferry...with bloody mud on your hands and face, if necessary.

David Roediger, in his introduction to Du Bois' bio of Brown, describes JB's beautiful 1848 essay "Sambo's Mistakes" as a "revolutionary tract in blackface." (9) That'd be what I'm up to here.

RUBICON CROSSED

The likelihood of bringing about necessary change without violence is truly minimal now. (10) We have turned the corner. Whereas (many of) the Civil War's abominations could have been avoided --perhaps-- if prevailing antebellum assumptions about black inferiority had been confronted in the early 19th century...by abolitionists, by the mid-fifties it was way too late.

With regard to today's crucial issues 'cross the board, it's now like the late fifties would have been to U.S. citizens of the 1800s. Beyond the pale. And I submit that only people who would never acknowledge the existence of such a crossroad will deny this; they would have attempted compromise with the 19th century South, believing in brotherly bargains till the last slave was shipped back to Africa...or crucified.

In Russell Banks' historical novel Cloudsplitter, there's a moment when Owen Brown confronts "the Old Man" about what can be done concerning the fact that landless, slaveless, ignorant and illiterate white serfs support the slaveowners. Without the negro, the father points out that they harbor self-destructive fantasies, and that

"...these men would be forced to see that, in fact, they have no more chance of becoming rich than do the very slaves they despise and trample on. They'd see how close they are to being slaves themselves. Thus, to protect and nurture their dream...they don't need actually to own slaves, so much as they need to keep the Negro from ever being free."

"Very nice," says Owen, but...still questioning, asks "how do you propose to show them this?" "Well, there's only one way," responds JB. "We must strike pure terror into their hearts, Owen. Pure terror. Pure! We must become terrible!," he growls. (11)

This is not politically correct talk today among the left, the Noam Chomsky quote (at the outset of this article) notwithstanding. But rather than make a case for John Brown's attitudinal set respecting his time/place and its relevance today, let me just --for now-- ask you to consider why the word "coward" is never leveled against a collegue in progressive circles. Permit me to make you wonder about this amazing fact of our collective lives. Or should I say..."lies" at this juncture?

I submit that it is not possible that spinelessness is not behind so much of the armchair pontification that dominates our so-called alternative dialogue. (12) Certainly, the very least we can do is to acknowledge the common denominator that the carnality of George Washington shares with the carnality of Brown. And see where that takes us.

CODA

Just before 1850, James Russell Lowell proposed that Frederick Douglass be allowed to become a member of an exclusive country club. He was astonished that an invitation was not forthcoming, that he encountered severe opposition. And the straw that broke his camel's back was observing Ralph Waldo Emerson on the other side of the barricades! (13)

In the December 16, 1853 issue of the Liberator, Garrison --a heroic spokesperson for manumission by any standards-- clearly stated that "as a class" blacks were not able to comprehend abolitionism; according to Professor Melish, "he had not internalized an abstraction that he had clearly embraced intellectually." (14)

We must not be held back by the fact that many of the talented, well-intentioned and accomplished among us are well-connected, awesome. We must have the courage to criticize these...monumental figures...when they go astray, dwell in ignorance. And go our own way, if necessary, without the huge numbers of followers at their command.

Keep in mind that Frederick Douglass did not join John Brown at Harpers Ferry.

And what might have not happened if David Walker didn't put down that banana peel?

And John Brown didn't go...down...there. That way.

Where we all are destined to meet, greeted by the oversoul that keeps "marching on," manifested imperfectly here. Not where I will meet with cyberspace hackers to hack this nation to death. Perhaps.
 

Special note: This author almost always writes for the purposes of moving his readers to (new kinds of) action. To honor this goal, the author prays that --with this contribution-- the reader will reconsider deeply ingrained concepts of citizenship, solidarity, urgency and violence, among others. Also, contrary to appearances, this article is not primarily about the fate of blacks. Rather, it is about much broader concerns...which cannot be addressed without a deep(er) knowledge of Black History, musings on martyrdom. For those with short attention spans and limited heartbeats to spare, the author recommends reading footnote #10...in lieu of rushing through the whole offering. Reading most of the footnotes before reaching the end might be necessary in order to understand the manifesto's concluding remarks. Finally, please note that it is rarely the author's intention that the reader "get" all of what is being said...on a first reading.
 

NOTES:

(1) It's important for the reader to keep in mind that --starting with our prison system as a point of departure-- we still have institutionalized slavery in the U.S. When one gets past the silly semantics involved in observing national boundaries today, it's easy to see how conditions at least as horrific as what was experienced by 19 century American slaves occur today...under our official auspices. Blight's words can be found on http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4i2980.html. Some of my previous writing on the subject can be found at http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/oxman08102004/.

(2a) Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 15.

(2b) Ibid., p. 59.

(3) As Professor Joanne Pope Melish points out in her excellent review of the late Paul Goodman's Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality (http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=18549949534063), the American Colonization Society's program to remove free blacks to Africa was "based on the notion that white prejudice and black inferiority made...large-scale emancipation impossible as long as they might be expected to remain...." In addition, there were hardcore economic issues making the removal "mandatory."

(4) See the overview of our academic treatment of Brown in James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Touchstone, 1996), especially pp. 172-77 and pp. 198-99.

(5) Patty Summa, a teacher at Bigelow Middle School in Newton, Massachusetts, confirms this at http://www.primarysource.org/library/tcus/d_walker.pdf.

(6) Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year. The penetrating piece alluded to here is his "Against School," which appeared in the September, 2003 issue of Harper's, pp. 33-38. "We don't need no education/We don't need no thought control" are the operative lines here. The terrible training of slavery in cowardice, submission and fatality has its parallels today in our schools.

(7) Quarles, op. cit., p. 14.

(8) See http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen11252004.html

(9) See p. xviii of W.E.B. Du Bois' John Brown (New York: The Modern Library, 2001). Like Du Bois, it is recommended that the reader date John Brown from his birthdate rather than from his death, invoking the greatness associated with what Herbert Aptheker calls "the most fateful year in the history of American Negro slave revolts." Aside from happenings in Haiti, it marks the birth of Nat Turner and a turning point for Denmark Vesey. The year of his death saw the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, and the beginning of moral retrogression amidst mind-boggling "advances."

(10) This sticking point truly has to be viewed in a new light. Pacifistic progressives inevitably jump to unwarranted images when "violence" is invoked. To wit, bombs in baby carriages, haywired Haymarket, bows and arrows, Odessa Steps and Red Guards of the Shengwulian come to mind. But a simple reliance on the relatively quiet skills of the contemporary computer hacker would do quite nicely, yes? Violence, then, could be inflicted upon not only the Pentagon, but on local school systems across the nation, the sources for our cannon fodder and flag-waving football fans (as per footnote #6 above). One does not have to make oneself as vulnerable as Kathy Kelly makes herself in her "What We Can Control" (http://www.counterpunch.org/kelly11272004.html). What would come of the Hacker Hoedown? As Arundhati Roy has said, it's not important to have something ready to replace what you're about to tear down. I submit it is not only important, but crucial, that we maintain faith in people's ability to come up with alternatives...as we move along. Parecons are admirable, but they're not indispensible paragons. Experience with many activists foul-mouthing my most recent proposal for nonviolent action (http://www.counterpunch.org/oxman11062004.html) without reading it thoroughly, coupled with the repeated refusals of Big Name "revolutionaries" to take part in direct action, begs for an innovative approach now. The straw that broke The Comrade's back, however, was receiving no response whatsoever --not even an iota of inspiring constructive criticism-- from certain quarters. 'Ya gotta love those Brutti for what they teach you. And ask yourself why you're alive. This is NOT a popularity contest. Fifty million Frenchmen, to twist the old saying, are always wrong.

(11) All quotations from Banks' work (New York: HarperPerrenial, 1998) are from pp. 595-96.

(12) Such is part of the reason, by the way, that Pol Pot targeted city-bred academics on the first round in 70s Cambodia.

(13) Quarles, op. cit., p. 47.

(14) This is from page 2 of the online source cited in footnote #3 above.

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Richard Oxman is author of the unpublished manuscript Beyond Manumission. He can be reached in Los Gatos, California at dueleft@yahoo.com. He is primarily preoccupied these days with recruiting brave souls worldwide to be part of a Core Group for Direct Action following New Paradigms. Some of his past lives can be found at www.frenchpaintbox.com and www.onedancesummit.org.