Date: 2006-05-22
From: Harpers Ferry, WV

To: Crampton Gap Shelter
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: scattered clouds

I've felt a bit unsettled since leaving Harpers Ferry. The town is an historic goldmine from John Brown's raid to the Civil War to Storer's College to the Niagara Movement, all linked by a common thread of opposition to racial oppression. On one hand, this history makes Harpers Ferry a monument celebrating the struggle for racial equality. On the other hand, the way this heritage is presented via historical markers, museums and other media reflects a "reconciliationist" view of history. The years following the Reconstruction era in US History have been called the period of Reconciliation, during which the North and South worked toward a common ideological framework from which the US could move forward as a united nation. In reaching such a framework, much of the progress in the arena of African American civil rights made during Reconstruction was undone. This period of Reconciliation also meant shaping a history of the Civil War on which both sides could agree. The resulting historical consensus does not reflect too positively upon John Brown and his raiders. Displays in the town portray him as a crazy man with a treasonous plan. They emphasize that a free black man was the first killed by the raiders, without mentioning that several liberated slaves (who joined the raid of their own volition) were killed by the VA militia and US Marines. Furthermore, the displays would have one think African Americans had no part in the raid, a misconception against which Osborne Anderson's narrative spoke. A majority of the raiders killed during the revolt were African Americans, and among the blacks killed a majority were liberated slaves. Osborne Anderson himself was a free black man who, after escaping Harpers Ferry, fled north and joined the Union Army during the Civil War. Lastly, the displays insinuate that slaves did not sympathize with the revolt. The video in the John Brown museum stated that John Brown had assumed slaves would revolt upon learning of the raid, but they didn't, leading to the raid's failure. Such a claim is so spurious and over-simplistic, leaving me disappointed a National Historic Area would pass it off as fact. 1)The goal of the raid was to commandeer rifles, not hold the Armory and hope for an uprising. 2)John Brown anticipated slaves would join the revolt once liberated from their bondage, which did occur on several plantations before the revolt was snuffed out. 3)Had the raiders escaped to the mountains as planned, they would have regrouped as planned, and then continued the process of liberating slaves plantation by plantation, building their army as they went. None of this is communicated to visitors at the historic site.Another thing that has left me unsettled is that to this day African Americans have yet to gain a position equal to that of whites in this society. Many roadblocks, institutional and social, remain between them and the rights all human beings should enjoy. And it isn't from a lack of effort. The Niagara Movement, the NAACP, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panthers, etc. have all fought diligently for their people's dignity, even if their tactics have varied. Yet the playing field still isn't level. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the myriad factors involved in the issue(s), and often feel helpless and without a place in the struggle, especially being white. Argh.On a brighter note, I've made it to and past Harpers Ferry, leaving VA and WV in the process. I was the 102nd northbound thru-hiker to check-in at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy office, well ahead of the flood. I'll be in Maryland for a few days, then onto PA! Woo hoo!Well, I should walk those last 6.5 miles to camp.Bear Can