"No one should countenance John Brown's violence or his effort to start a war to end slavery...You can be on the right side of history but still be wrong." @hwbrands on @nprfreshair. @amhistorymuseum visitors were conflicted on this at our Time Trials. When is violence justified?

One thing I learned @smithsonian John Brown Time Trials: Americans have little problem w/ violence. They just thought Brown was a crazy zealot. When our theatre program showed Brown was eloquent, charismatic & rational, people felt his legacy was positive & he should be revered.

This is one reason I'm so excited for us to be producing Time Trials as graphic novels with @IDWPublishing where we will be exploring the historical legacy of many people from the past and engaging the space between history and memory.

Hoping to develop some online Time Trials to debate the legacies of people and events from the past. The @amhistorymuseum @smithsonian John Brown Time Trial was a highlight of my career.

“If you have a problem with what John Brown did, then you should have a problem with what our ‘Founding Fathers’ did.

Malcolm X on how we see violence in support of Black freedom, Feb 1965: The US is “violent when their interests are at stake. But all of that violence that they display at the international level, when you and I want just a little bit of freedom, we’re supposed to be nonviolent.”

“They’re violent. They’re violent in Korea, they’re violent in Germany, they’re violent in the South Pacific, they’re violent in Cuba, they’re violent wherever they go. But when it comes time for you and me to protect ourselves against lynchings, they tell us to be nonviolent.”

More from @hwbrands on the justifiability of John Brown’s violence and the Civil War dead over slavery. “Surely even Brown would have quailed at the carnage. And so should we, no matter how much we applaud the war’s role in emancipation.” I don’t think he’d have quailed.