Douglass v. Brown

This is my latest effort in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge.  The prompt I was given will follow at the end of the piece. 

I've never attempted scriptwriting, so I apologize if my formatting is awkward. 

It seemed the best way to craft this piece, as it’s entirely a conversation between two men. Consider this work as designed for the stage.

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Late August, 1859

Chambersburg, PA

John Brown – a white man of nearly 60, with a thick white beard and a full head of salt and pepper hair

Frederick Douglass – a black man, roughly 40 years of age, sporting a closely cropped black beard

The meeting occurs in the home of Douglass, both men nattily attired in the fashion of the day. 

            FREDERICK

John, my dear friend, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?

            JOHN

Forgive me if I dispense with pleasantries, Frederick, but the matter is urgent. The plan we discussed in Rochester last year is nearing fruition, but I still lack that one man around whom Negroes will rally.  General Tubman has been tireless in her efforts to recruit on my behalf, but once hostilities begin, and we march southward, I’ll need you by my side.  I understand your reservations, but I must prevail upon you to reconsider.

            FREDERICK

I remain unconvinced that your course of action can have a positive outcome, John.  Attacking a federal armory and seizing weapons cannot be endorsed by President Buchanan.  He’ll be forced to send the military in pursuit, and assuming you survive the initial attack, you’ll surely be captured and hanged.  If, by some miracle, you manage to elude capture, your actions shall surely galvanize southern slaveholders against abolitionists everywhere.  Your devotion to the cause is unquestioned, but you’d be better served to let politicians make the sort of sweeping changes you seek.  I’d suggest you instead turn your focus back to your League of Gileadites.  Keeping those slaves lucky enough to escape the South beyond the reach of those who would seek to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act would accomplish more and keep you alive longer.

            JOHN

Rhetoric isn’t going to end this scourge, Frederick.  If you’d been in Kansas with me, if you’d seen to rage, the fury with which those men fought, you’d know that they understand nothing but force. Their cowardice will be revealed when they’re forced to face the same men they treat as livestock instead holding rifles and pikes!

            FREDERICK

You’re counting on men who have never in their lives so much as touched a firearm, unless it was used as a club to discipline them, to suddenly be expert with Beecher’s Bibles?  Isn’t that a bit optimistic?

            JOHN
Negroes arrived on these shores having never seen a cotton plant, yet their skill at harvest was so great that I believe some Southerners would transplant the entire population of the Dark Continent here, were they able. 

My concern isn’t acumen with a rifle, Frederick, it’s instead that these men can tell the difference between friend and foe and not start pulling the trigger every time they see a white face.  Not that I’d blame them if they felt that way.  

            FREDERICK

(Laughing softly)

 John, I sometimes wonder if your enthusiasm to reach emancipation doesn’t surpass my own.  I just can’t accept this course of action.  Freeing every slave in the Commonwealth of Virginia won’t garner you the ultimate change you seek. Give my way a chance. Let my words, the words of Sojourner, of Harriet, of William Garrison do their work.  My people need to be armed with books, with opportunity, not weapons.    

            JOHN

(Becoming visibly agitated)

If not now, when?  When will be the right time?  I seek to reunite families, to pull men out of the fields, out of the barns and into society.  Imagine an army of your brothers, armed and marching through Tennessee and into the heart of Alabama.  The size of our company growing as free men join with their benefactors, their brethren!  It will be glorious! This is the vision God gives me when I lay down my head at night.  I only worry that the 100,000 rifles I seek to liberate from the Armory won’t be enough to arm them all.

            FREDERICK

Your conviction is resolute.  I fear I’ll be unable to convince you to reconsider.  I must decline the invitation and ask you to send word on the eve of your attack on Harpers Ferry that I may relocate my family to protect them from those who would seek to punish us for guilt by association.  My prayers will be with you, your sons, and all who join your noble cause. 

            JOHN

My task would be far more likely to succeed with you as a member of our band.  Nevertheless, we will seize the armory and cut a swath through the South led by an army the likes of which the world has never seen.  Godspeed to you and yours, Frederick, and should I not survive the battles to come, I wish you all the best in rebuilding this once-great nation.  You’ll be needed by those who replace that doughface Buchanan.  Farewell, my friend.

(Both men rise, shake hands, and John Brown departs.  Frederick Douglass watches his friend leave and returns to his chair, hand on his chin in deep thought)

Two months hence, John Brown led a ragtag group that did capture the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA, only to have their insurrection put down by a military force under the command of Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee.  Brown was executed on December 2, 1859.  On the morning of his hanging, Brown wrote “The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”  His actions and death arguably sparked the American Civil War.           

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I was challenged by Tobie with the prompt "If not now, when?"  I challenged Tara Roberts with the prompt "You have a terrible case of writer's block.  Describe the steps you take to break the dam and get the words flowing."  Her masterful reply is here.