Pressroom

Mar 24 2009
The Portent: John Brown’s Raid in American Memory; On display at the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA October 10, 2009 – April 11, 2010

The Portent: John Brown’s Raid in American Memory
On display at the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA
October 10, 2009 – April 11, 2010

As a major part of the national acknowledgement of the 150th anniversary of
John Brown’s raid on the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the
Virginia Historical Society (VHS) presents The Portent: John Brown’s Raid
in American Memory.  This exhibition serves as the first-ever critical
analysis by a Southern institution of an episode that, on the eve of the
Civil War, broke open sectionalist fissures. Brown demanded that his
contemporaries take a moral stance on slavery.  To this day, a mention of
his attack spurs debate about issues of justice, terrorism, liberation, and
vigilantism.

The Portent — which will include the largest number of commemorative
ceramic objects relating to John Brown ever displayed — is broken down into
eight sections: Prelude in Kansas, Raid, Capture, Incarceration, Execution,
Reaction, Martyrdom, and Memory.  The Portent opens at the Virginia
Historical Society on October 10, 2009, six days before the anniversary,
will extend through Black History Month, and closes on April 11, 2010.  An
exhibition catalogue and online exhibition will accompany the show.