John Brown, Harriet Tubman: models for multiracial fightback
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This coming October 17 will mark the 161st anniversary of the raid on Harpers Ferry. It was a revolutionary revolt showing the need for militant, antiracist, multiracial, revolutionary struggle! The fight against racist terror continues with the rebellions sparked by police murders this summer. As workers recognize the power of unity, the cops crack down harder on protests.
The southern enslaving class was terrified by the Harpers Ferry raiders’ militant, multiracial unity, a real-life rebuke of their racist stereotyping. One of the raiders’ five Black freedom fighters, Osborne Anderson, described the atmosphere before-hand:
"I have been permitted to realize to its furthest, fullest extent, the moral, mental, physical, social harmony of an Anti-Slavery family, carrying out to the letter the principle of the Anti-slavery cause. In John Brown’s house, and in John Brown’s presence, men from widely different parts of the continent met and united into one company, wherein no hateful prejudice dared intrude its ugly self — no ghost of a distinction found space to enter."