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Rev. Pfleger As A Modern John Brown

I was tempted to describe Mary Mitchell as a Chicago Sun Times columnist who sees Barack Obama as the Second Coming, but upon re-reading her column today it strikes me that she may well see him as the First.

Her heart goes out to the eight thousand congregants of Rev. Wright?s Trinity United, not because of anything they are subjected to inside the church but because they are ?hostages? to the mean, ?fearmongering? politics on the outside. Indeed, she sees nothing inside the church but people, ?just like other people, [who] go to church looking for comfort,? but as result of ugly politics? ? all of which is directed at the 8000 hostages from outside ? ?the sanctity of Trinity has been trampled.?

Mitchell, in short, writes in solidarity with those ?Trinitarians [who] jumped to their feet hooting and hollering? in response to Rev. Pfleger et. al., and she bitterly resents the fact that ?Obama has repeatedly been forced to cut ties with black leaders by people who are exploiting white fears....?

She does, however, get one thing about right.

In the footsteps of John Brown

Pfleger, who has raised holy hell about racist policies, including those fostered by churches under the umbrella of the archdiocese, has been a modern-day John Brown.

For those who are fuzzy about history, in 1859, Brown was the white abolitionist who led an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, trying to arm blacks for an assault on slaveholders.

They were stopped before carrying out the plan, but the insurrection put the South on notice that there were abolitionists willing to wage fierce battle to end slavery in America.

Although no one proposes that Pfleger be hung as a traitor, as John Brown was, this comparison is more apt than Mitchell suspects. In his zeal to free the slaves by arming them with weapons to be captured at Harpers Ferry, Brown was actually responsible for the deaths of several.

Initially, the raid went well, and they met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grand-nephew of George Washington. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand. Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. The train?s baggage master tried to warn the passengers. Brown?s men yelled for him to halt and then opened fire. The baggage master, Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of John Brown?s war against slavery. Ironically, Shepherd was a free black man. Two of the hostages? slaves also died in the raid.

That Brown?s raid would result in additional victimization of the victims of slavery was not ironical at all, but entirely predictable. In fact it was predicted by Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist.

In late August he met with Douglass in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he revealed the Harpers Ferry plan. Douglass expressed severe reservations, rebuffing Brown?s pleas to join the mission. Douglass had actually known about Brown?s plans from early in 1859 and had made a number of efforts to discourage blacks from enlisting.

Both Brown and, if Ms. Mitchell is to be believed, his modern counterpart, Rev. Pfleger, were honest and up front about their radicalism. In that regard they are actually more appealing Obama, who has so far succeeded in disguising his.

Obama?s success to date in keeping his radicalism under wraps will be severely compromised by anyone who reads Stanley Kurtz?s explosive exposé on NRO. Almost everyone who comments on Obama?s Trinity problem goes out of his or her way to emphasize that no one really suspects Obama himself shares Wright?s or Pfleger?s views. Drawing on an underappreciated profile of Obama that appeared in 1995, Kurtz does more than suspect. Read it.

Full post as published by Discriminations on June 03, 2008 (boomark / email).