Nearly 160 years ago this month, abolitionist John Brown led 18 men down a dark country road to Harpers Ferry, located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers some 60 miles upstream from Washington, D.C. His plan was to seize the federal arsenal and armory, take hostages and foment a slave rebellion. The […]
Sharing the Story of “Five for Freedom” – Lessons Given and Lessons Learned
By the time most of you who subscribe read this, I will have shared the stories of Osborne Perry Anderson, John Anthony Copeland, Shields Green, Lewis Sheridan Leary and Dangerfield Newby — the Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army — in a Writers LIVE talk at the Enoch Pratt Library in […]
LOCAL AUTHOR TELLS STORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND JOHN BROWN’S RAID
This was posted Aug. 28, 2018 on the “Source of the Spring” website and is reprinted with permission. My thanks to Mike Diegel, whose site seeks to fill a community news gap in Silver Spring, Md. A Woodside Forest resident has told a little-known story of five African-American men who fought alongside John Brown in the […]
FIVE FOR FREEDOM: Coming Events, and Other Important Updates
The rollout continues for FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army. If you missed me at Politics and Prose, you can watch the YouTube video by clicking here. Earlier this week, I was interviewed on WOWD-FM, a Takoma Park, Md. community radio station. To listen, click here. To see and hear […]
George L. Cato, Jr., R.I.P.
Many, probably almost all of you, have never heard of George Cato. He wasn’t an author or a media celebrity or a public figure. What he was was my neighbor and closest friend. He died unexpectedly on June 24, and a memorial service was held at Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring on July 7. […]
Families Torn apart: It Has Happened Here. It Is Happening Here.
BRENTSVILLE, Va. — It has happened before. Families torn apart. Crying children wrenched from the arms of sobbing parents. Uncertainty over whether the family would ever be reunited or forever separated. Lack of due process, yet actions taken under the color of law. On the steps of the antebellum courthouse here in Prince William County, […]
This Is the Week That Was: FIVE FOR FREEDOM is here and now!
I’m proud to report that the e-book version of FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army is #3 on Amazon’s list of hot new releases in the abolition category! Last time I looked. The Amazon rankings are as changeable as the weather, hot one moment, cooler the next. At the start […]
What You Missed: Schieffer, McDermott, Dionne et al
Or maybe the headline should read: Last Weekend’s News Tonight, or This Morning, or whenever you are reading it. And, what a weekend it was at the 6th annual Washington Writers Conference (#DCWritersConf), sponsored by the Washington Independent Review of Books. Held at the College Park Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, it featured TV news […]
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Or read all about at least some of it.
I still read print newspapers–-three are delivered daily to our driveway—but I find today’s news overwhelming. Easier to retreat into the past, which on closer examination was also overwhelming to those who lived through it. It’s probably even easier to skim the “morning” headlines on my Kindle the night before. Except in our 24/7 news […]
Frederick Douglass “being recognized more and more”
As is now widely known, thanks to stories posted during Black History Month, 2018 represents the bicentennial year of the birth of Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to become perhaps the nation’s preeminent 19th century African American abolitionist, publisher, diplomat, orator and author. His birth is said to have occurred […]