John Brown (Du Bois)/Preface
Preface
After the work of Sanborn, Hinton, Connelley, and Redpath, the only excuse for another life of John Brown is an opportunity to lay new emphasis upon the material which they have so carefully collected, and to treat these facts from a different point of view. The view-point adopted in this book is that of the little known but vastly important inner development of the Negro American. John Brown worked not simply for Black Men—he worked with them; and he was a companion of their daily life, knew their faults and virtues, and felt, as few white Americans have felt, the bitter tragedy of their lot. The story of John Brown, then, cannot be complete unless due emphasis is given this phase of his activity. Unfortunately, however, few written records of these friendships and this long continued intimacy exist, so that little new material along these lines can be adduced. For the most part one must be content with quoting the authors mentioned (and I have quoted them freely), and other writers like Anderson, Featherstonhaugh, Barry, Hunter, Boteler, Douglass and Hamilton. But even in the absence of special material the great broad truths are clear, and this book is at once a record of and a tribute to the man who of all Americans has perhaps come nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois.