Steven Lubet. The “Colored Hero” of Harper’s Ferry

“Despite the best efforts of historians,” Isaac Marion writes in his novel Warm Bodies, “there are some things we’ll just never know.” While the past does not provide easy access to its forgotten corners, this often bleak aspect of the historian’s struggle is, happily, sometimes upended. In his new monograph, The “Colored Hero” of Harper’s Ferry: John Anthony Copeland and the War against Slavery, Steven Lubet valiantly explores one of history’s unknowns, John Anthony Copeland, a black freedom fighter who joined John Brown’s infamous invasion of Harper’s Ferry. While Lubet does not fully rescue the black Oberlinite from the deep shadow of this event or its central protagonist, the author’s efforts to illuminate one of Brown’s virtually unknown compatriots are heartening and thought-provoking. Lubet sets himself a particularly difficult task because of Copeland’s association with Brown. Scholarly and popular writing about Brown, dedicated to chronicling his exploits, explaining his influence, and arguing about his motivations, dwarfs the work dedicated to most American presidents, for example. The 150th anniversary of his execution saw a slew of studies seemingly designed to close the case on this abolitionist and his fight against slavery, but the decade that has followed has seen no shortage of further work. Brown simply offers endless opportunities, in the words of Albion Tourgée, to create anew this “Monster and Martyr, Conspirator and Saint; Murderer and Liberator; Cause and Consequence!”

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