Abolishing the Norm - Episode 4: Over John Brown's Body

Despite over half a century of abolitionist activity, including subversive activism, dissent, debate, protest and attempts at electoral process, by the end of the 1850s the demise of slavery seemed to some to still be as far from becoming reality as ever.

Enter John Brown. Whereas the division over the issue of slavery had riven the young federal society of the US apart, John Brown never wavered, questioned or acted against the defining principle of his life: slavery was an abomination that must end.

podcasts, Stuff What You Tell Me, Abolition of slavery, John BrownIapetusAugust 9, 2018Stuff What You Tell Me, SWYTM block 2 Comment

Abolishing the Norm - Episode 3: No Place Like Home

The passing of the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854 opened up a new battlefront in the United States between those for and against the institution of slavery. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who sponsored the bill, supported the notion of popular sovereignty; that the people who lived in a certain territory could decide by themselves whether or not to allow slavery. In so doing, he began a race between rebellious free-staters and resistant pro-slavery partisans to claim Kansas as their own, which lead to an outburst of violence that history remembers as the Bleeding of Kansas.

podcasts, Stuff What You Tell Me, Abolition of slavery, John BrownIapetusApril 30, 2018Stuff What You Tell Me, SWYTM block 1Comment