How Teddy Roosevelt Screwed Over John Brown's Legacy

In this episode, Lou examines how Theodore Roosevelt appropriated—and ultimately undermined—the historical legacy of John Brown. Focus centers on Roosevelt’s August 1910 "New Nationalism" address at the dedication of the John Brown Memorial Park in Osawatomie, Kansas, followed by his September 1910 essay in The Outlook, "The Progressives of the Past and the Present."

Key topics explored include:

• The Osawatomie Address: How TR used the backdrop of Osawatomie to launch his progressive political platform while barely mentioning John Brown, subordinating Brown's abolitionist conviction to the political centrism of Abraham Lincoln.
• The Myth of the "Messianic Lincoln": The early 20th-century elevation of Lincoln at the expense of genuine racial justice, using national reconciliation to appease white Southern sensibilities during the rise of Jim Crow.
• The Historiographical Shift: The critical divergence between early 20th-century biographical treatments—contrasting W.E.B. Du Bois’s profound 1909 study with Oswald Garrison Villard’s 1910 pacifist critique that framed Brown as a fanatic.
• Progressive Compromise vs. Radical Equality: How Roosevelt and the post-Reconstruction political establishment reduced Brown's fight for immediate, uncompromising racial equality to a cautionary tale about revolutionary extremism.

Outro music: "Gray," by Infraction