All Men Are Created Equal...

Myth: John Brown, the fanatical abolitionist, first gained notoriety during the Bleeding Kansas crisis during the 1850s, in which proslavery and abolitionist factions vied for supremacy in the Kansas Territory.  Both sides knew what hung in the balance: Would Kansas enter the Union as a free state or slave state?  Most abolitionists advocated a pacifist approach when dealing with their proslavery counterparts, employing politics and diplomacy as their axes and swords.  John Brown on the other hand vehemently disagreed with this tactic.  He and a band of like-minded zealots skirmished with equally violent proslavery Border Ruffians, resulting in the death of many over a period of time.  Brown’s anger and frustration were eventually channeled into a plan to attack the US arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.  With the consent of such political and social figures as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, Brown concocted a scheme to lead an armed insurrection led by slaves themselves.  After a mere 36 hours, the plan backfired on October 18^th 1859.  Seven were killed at the hands of Brown and his comrades, sending a shockwave of fear throughout Dixie.  Brown was executed by hanging a few months later in the December cold.

Fact:  John Brown was a man ahead of his time – a true progressive.  Abolitionists were a dime a dozen, and though it may seem like Brown was an ardent abolitionist, he most certainly was not.  No, no.  Brown was one of America’s first gay rights activists, petitioning more than a century before the first large-scale gay rights demonstrations even transpired.  His status as abolitionist is a combination of his colorblindness and the antislavery movement exploiting Brown’s affliction to further their agenda.  Brown did not see race, but he did see shirtless men.  Victorian dress was anything but freeing.  A Connecticut man by birth, Brown interacted with only a few homosexuals during his former years.  As homosexuality was not even spoken of during this sexually restrictive period of time, certain signs were flashed within the gay community to let one know they too were of their ilk.  A man revealing his bare ankle was the most common.  Brown became increasingly stifled during his New England rearing, and he yearned to flee to that bastion of the gay community – the Deep South.  Paradoxically, the same states that locked African-American men in shackles were also the most sexually liberal areas in the world.  Brown had most likely heard of such havens as the majestic Cotton Club of Charleston, South Carolina, wherein gay men could dance amidst large, billowing bales of cotton (a precursor to the foam parties of the 20^th century).  His naivety was later shattered as he laid eyes upon hoards of shirtless men, lashed by, what appeared to be, fully clothed homophobes.  Where was this bastion he had heard so much about?  Brown’s colorless world became even drabber, as the same people who were once so accepting of homosexuality chastised his brethren.  That bastion did exist, he just, literally, couldn’t see it.  Enraged, Brown turned violent.  Men such as Frederick Douglass utilized his rage to the abolitionist’s advantage.  “I don’t care much for Brown’s alternative lifestyle choices, but during this tumultuous time, we must fight fire with fire and rid the South of its peculiar institution.  And if man-love be vanquished as well, so be it…all the better.”  Douglass, the fervent abolitionist and closet homophobe, played puppet master and pulled the strings on Brown’s hardened heart.  Thinking he was arming the largest gay army ever assembled, Brown failed and was executed by a racist South and homophobic North, soon to be torn apart.