John Brown

The John Brown poster was created for John Brown's Truth, a musical which integrates Afro-Caribbean, jazz, European classical, spoken-word, and dance—with words and musical conception by William Crossman. The musical covers selected events, all within the year 1859, in the life of anti-slavery abolitionist John Brown as he prepares and carries out his raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia and, afterwards, as he is put on trial for the raid. I was happy to illustrate a story about a man who put actions to his beliefs. Up until the time of making the poster I had always assumed John Brown was a black man.