October 16, 2009, marks the sesquicentennial of the attack by John Brown and his forces on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The attack itself was carried out by nineteen men, while three remained as a rear guard. Brown was captured, executed, and buried — along with ten men who died as a result of the attack, including one of his sons — at his farmstead in North Elba in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. His burial was within the African American community in which he had lived for a time, Timbuctoo.

Over the years, Brown has been eulogized by Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, W. E. B. Du Bois (who wrote, “Has John Brown no message — no legacy then, to the twentieth century? He has, and it is this great word: the cost of liberty is less than the cost of repression.”), the poet Muriel Rukeyser, and Malcolm X (who wrote, “if you are for me…then you have to be willing to do as old John Brown did”), among others.

But perhaps his lasting legacy is found in his own words, delivered moments before his hanging: “Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life, for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and MINGLE MY BLOOD FURTHER WITH THE BLOOD OF MY CHILDREN, and with the blood of millions in this Slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments — I say LET IT BE DONE.”
— Eds.
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This article is Part 1 of a multi-part series entitled 'Libertarian Spain in the 1930's'

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