Tag Archive for "john Brown Farm" - The Adirondack Almanack

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This year the North Country Juneteenth Colors of Freedom celebration of the region’s role in the fight against slaver which highlights the Underground Railroad work in the area and avid abolitionist, John Brown, will be held on June 17, 18, 19 and 20. As part of the celebration, an individual, business, organization or politician will be recognized with a North Country Juneteenth Colors of Freedom Community Award. This award will be given to a person(s) who has honored an individual or organization in the Adirondack/North Country region who has made a positive impact on African American members in the community and actively promoted the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

John Brown Farm and New York’s Voter Suppression History

by Peter Slocum

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This year we are celebrating New York State’s acquisition of John Brown Farm 125 years ago. And it is good that we are.

But let us also recall a 200th Anniversary linked to the John Brown Farm – a connection that has particular importance this year as we witness a voter suppression spree around our country. Two hundred years ago, that was us–our New York ancestors–enacting explicit rules to keep blacks from voting.

John Brown and his family came here to the Adirondacks as part of an effort to counteract New York State-sponsored suppression of voting rights for black men.

We are now seeing a wave of voter suppression efforts in states controlled by Republican legislators fearful of losing their majority power. Well, guess what? That’s exactly what was going on here in good old New York back in the early 1800’s. We New Yorkers apparently were leaders in voter suppression. We even put it into the state constitution! That’s more than the states are doing today.

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Art exhibit by incarcerated artists on display at John Brown Farm

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The Adirondack Center for Writing and Federal Correctional Institute Ray Brook are proud to present an exhibit of pieces created by incarcerated artists. This 25-piece exhibit features paintings and some pottery, all inspired by classic Adirondack landscapes and figures.

“ACW has always been dedicated to giving space for the voiceless and this new exhibit is an example of our most important kind of work,” said Nathalie Thill, Executive Director at Adirondack Center for Writing. “This is incredibly special as it is the first time art by incarcerated artists has been displayed outside of a correctional facility in the North Country. We are really honored to bring this exhibit to life. John Brown Farm is the perfect location with its abolitionist history and natural beauty, and we can’t wait to share it with the public.”

Thursday, June 17, 2021

John Brown Farm pairs Juneteenth celebration with 125th anniversary

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On Friday, June 18, 2021, John Brown Lives! (JBL!) and NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYSORHP) will unveil a banner heralding the 125th anniversary of NYS’ acquisition of the John Brown Farm in 1896.

NYS Parks Commissioner Erik Kulleseid and DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos are expected for the unveiling and special tour of the Farm, including the Memorial Field for Black Lives. Also present will be 125th Anniversary Honorary Committee Co-Chairs novelist Russell Banks and visual artist, historian and acclaimed author Nell Painter.

They will be joined by environmental leader Aaron Mair, Nicky Hylton-Patterson, director of the Adirondack Diversity Initiative, and Saranac Lake artist and creator of the Memorial Field for Black Lives, Ren Davidson.

The tour, from 11am-12pm, will include the Dreaming of Timbuctoo Exhibition and a moment of silence in the gravesite where Brown and fellow Raiders are buried and in the Memorial Field. The public is welcome to attend.

Friday, February 12, 2021

John Brown’s Farm: 125 Years in Support of Abolitionist History

by Vanessa Banti

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Celebration of John Brown Farm as a NYS Historical Site

When you stand at the grave of famed abolitionist John Brown, you stand at the intersection of the timeless forest and the modern society that humans have created. Behind you rises the “Cloudsplitter” that has framed this view for as long as anyone has looked at it. In front of you looms the Olympic ski jump, and down the road are other signs of a busy human world: upscale summer homes, an airport, a major highway. Looking in one direction shows you history. Looking in the other shows you a modern world that may not seem to have much in common with the past…right? At John Brown’s Farm in North Elba, I don’t believe this to be the case.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Saw-whet Owl Banding at John Brown’s Farm

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Dr. Nina Schoch, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer at the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation and conservation biologist, zoologist and photographer Larry Master will be banding saw-whet owls at the John Brown Farm during October.

This banding is part of Project Owlnet. Project Owlnet facilitates communication, cooperation and innovation among a rapidly growing network of hundreds of owl-migration researchers in North America and abroad. » Continue Reading.

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Amy Godine on John Brown Pilgrimages, Lake Placid Club

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Adirondack Life contributor and independent scholar Amy Godine is set to track the history of pilgrimages to abolitionist John Brown’s North Elba grave and home, with an emphasis on the yearly visits of the John Brown Memorial Association from Philadelphia and the exclusionary Lake Placid Club.

From 1922 into the 1970s, black activists gathered at Brown’s shrine to honor his May birthday with speeches, sermons, and song. People in Lake Placid participated too, spurning the segregationist culture of the Jim Crow era. Of special interest to Godine is the complicated relationship of the black city pilgrims with the notoriously exclusionary Lake Placid Club. » Continue Reading.

Thursday, June 6, 2019

John Brown Farm Nature Programs Planned

John Brown Farm has announced a number of nature programs set to run in June.

Conservation biologist and photographer Larry Master will lead a guided bird walk on Saturday, June 8, from 7 to 9 am, and a guided butterfly walk on Saturday, July 13, from 9:30 to 11:30 am. Rain dates are June 15 and July 14, respectively. » Continue Reading.

Monday, May 13, 2019

Historical Pilgrimages to the John Brown’s Farm

by David Fiske

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Memorial Day weekend is approaching, and along with the “unofficial start of summer,” the Adirondacks will experience its annual influx of vacationers. But in years past, visitors arrived in May for another purpose: a pilgrimage to the John Brown farm in North Elba, New York. At the farm, a wreath would be laid upon the abolitionist’s grave, and the song “John Brown’s Body” was sung. » Continue Reading.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

John Brown Lives! Awarded Grant by Parks & Trails

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John Brown Lives! (JBL!) has been awarded a $31,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Fund’s (EPF) Park and Trail Partnership Program to enhance interpretation at the John Brown Farm and to develop outreach strategies that raise awareness of and support of the site.

JBL! became the official Friends Group of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid in 2016. » Continue Reading.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Blues at Timbuctoo Festival Set For John Brown’s Farm

The second Blues at Timbuctoo festival will bring four acts to historic John Brown Farm on Saturday, September 16, from 11 am to 5 pm. The event, which is presented by John Brown Lives! and Delta Blue, is free and open to the public.

This year’s performers include: Jerry Dugger, a Bronx-born, Harlem-raised guitar player who frequently plays the Red Lion and Lucille’s Grille at B.B. King’s Blues Club in New York City; Alexis P. Suter, a powerful singer nominated for multiple Blues Music Awards, including Best Contemporary Female Act in 2017; Michael Hill Blues Mob, a Bronx-based trio that blends the blues with rock, reggae, funk and R&B (Hill is a 2011 inductee into the New York Blues Hall of Fame); and the Russ Bailey Trio, a North Country group specializing in blues and boogie. » Continue Reading.

Friday, April 22, 2016

John Brown Lives! To Recognize Danny Glover, Alice Green, Brother Yu

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Actor and activist Danny Glover, Albany civil rights leader Alice Green and youth advocate Brother Yusuf Abdul-Wasi Burgess will be the first recipients of the Spirit of John Brown Freedom Award, to be awarded at the John Brown Day 2016 celebration on Saturday, May 7th, at 1 pm.

The annual event, which is organized by Westport-based human rights and freedom education project John Brown Lives!, will be held at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid. The public is welcome. » Continue Reading.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Mary Ann Day Brown, Widow of John Brown

by Sandra Weber

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Last weekend, the Saratoga Historical Society in California celebrated the 200th birthday of Mary Ann Day Brown, wife of radical abolitionist John Brown. The milestone was observed a few weeks prior to her actual birthday (April 15) to coincide with the Blossom Festival…. but, wait. Doesn’t John Brown’s body lie a moldering in his grave in New York State? Yes, it does, in the Adirondacks near Lake Placid. The grave of his second wife Mary however, is at the other end of the country, in Saratoga, California’s Madronia Cemetery.

It is all rather ironic since the life of Mary Ann Day started 200 years ago on April 15, 1816, in Granville in Washington County. Mary was a quite ordinary woman of the 1800s: quiet, modest, godly, and usually poor. Scores of thousands such lives pass unnoticed; history tends to remember women of wealth, beauty or offbeat wackiness if it recalls their existence at all. » Continue Reading.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Timbuctoo Exhibit Finds Permanent Home

A landmark civil rights exhibit that has been seen by thousands of viewers across New York state is about to get a permanent home in Lake Placid.

The Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibition will be installed this spring at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site, where visitors will have a chance to get an up-close look at a little-known period of Adirondack and African-American history when black and white abolitionists worked together to secure equal voting rights for black New Yorkers. » Continue Reading.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

John Brown Event: American Martyr, Hero