Every movement, civil or otherwise, needs a symbol. In order to motivate the members of a group searching for change, there must be a fulcrum on which they can hinge and validate their beliefs. For the abolitionist movement, John Brown was that symbol. Despite debates over his methods, Brown's actions allowed for other abolitionists to see him as a microcosm for all of which they were working and risking their lives. He embodied the ideals of the movement through his aggressive actions, his ultimate sacrifice, and his post mortem praise by literary giants of the time period.
John Brown was not the typical abolitionist. The movement itself was based on the foundation of peaceful resistance, which Brown saw as a repeatedly proven ineffective method of achieving the abolition of slavery. Instead, Brown insisted that the only way true progress could occur was through weaponized insurrection. Brown believed that the achievement of liberty had to be bought with the blood of those preventing enslaved Americans from attaining it. Thus, he gathered his followers and in 1856 led raids in Kansas that led to several fatalities, causing the tension held between abolitionists and slave owners in the area to escalate dramatically and become infinitely more apparent. This level of hostility, known as "Bleeding Kansas," persisted for months until Brown left Kansas. His next major action was his failed raid on an armory in Harper's Ferry in 1859, which led to his eventual trial and death by hanging.
Brown was foundationally polemic, even by abolitionist standards. While all people opposed to the system of human objectification faced adversity and critics, Brown had to deal with criticism within his own cause. In this manner, Brown's sub cause within the abolitionists started at an even higher disadvantage than the movement as a whole. His actions were even labeled as "misguided," by The Liberator, an abolitionist magazine from the time period.
