[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 85 (Tuesday, May 20, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H2151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   HONORING JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST

  (Mrs. Sykes of Ohio was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mrs. SYKES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer a resolution honoring 
one of the most uncompromising voices for freedom in American history, 
abolitionist John Brown, on the occasion of the 225th anniversary of 
his birth.
  Born on May 9 in the year 1800 in Connecticut, John Brown was a man 
who did not simply believe in the cause of abolition. He lived for it. 
He fought for it. Ultimately, he died for it.
  From 1844 to 1854, John Brown and his family lived in Akron, Ohio, 
where he partnered in business with Colonel Simon Perkins, the son of 
the city's founder. In fact, the house that John Brown lived in was on 
the same street where I grew up. It was just a few hundred yards away. 
It was a constant and present reminder in my life to fight for what is 
right.
  John Brown was so much more than a businessman. He was a freedom 
fighter. His home in Akron became a stop on the Underground Railroad 
where he harbored enslaved people who had escaped and sought safety and 
a new life in a more enlightened part of the world.
  Later, in Springfield, Massachusetts, Brown used his wool warehouse 
as another station on the Underground Railroad. He offered dignity, 
protection, and skills to those who escaped slavery and freed men, 
including how to farm and sustain themselves in a new life free from 
bondage.
  He used his wool business as a means to travel, to connect, and to 
advance the cause of abolition across State lines.
  However, when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which 
made it a Federal crime to aid a runaway slave and compelled even free 
States to enforce slavery, Brown took a very bold step.
  He organized the League of Gileadites, encouraging African Americans 
to train in arms to defend their freedom against re-enslavement. He 
made clear: Freedom was not a privilege. It was a right worth 
defending.
  In 1855, Brown and his sons traveled to Kansas, a territory torn by 
violent conflict over whether it would enter the Union as a free or a 
slave State. There he joined anti-slavery forces in what came to be 
known as Bleeding Kansas. He believed that slavery could not be voted 
away or reasoned away, it had to be confronted.
  In October of 1859, John Brown led one of the most daring and 
polarizing actions in American history.
  At Harpers Ferry, Virginia, he led a raid on the United States 
arsenal, intending to initiate a slave revolt. Although the raid 
ultimately failed and Brown was captured, tried, and executed, he 
succeeded in forcing a divided nation to confront the moral crisis of 
slavery.
  Mr. Speaker, John Brown's methods remain the subject of debate, but 
the righteousness of his cause is not. He understood what so many were 
unwilling to admit, that slavery was a profound evil, this country's 
original sin, and that waiting for gradual change meant accepting the 
continued suffering of millions.
  The House of Representatives now has the opportunity to formally 
recognize his legacy. This resolution honors and commemorates the 225th 
anniversary of John Brown's birth and recognizes the generational 
impact that John Brown had on the abolitionist movement and his 
enduring contributions to ending slavery in the United States of 
America. John Brown's life reminds us that moral courage often requires 
action, uncomfortable, unpopular, and even dangerous action. His legacy 
belongs not only to our past but to our ongoing struggling for justice 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

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