'The Good Lord Bird' Episode 7: John Brown's imagined last words to Onion are as good as the ones he was not allowed
Spoilers for ‘The Good Lord Bird’ Finale ‘Last Words’
In Showtime’s dramatic and comedic biographical series chronicling the life (or at least the last couple of years) of abolitionist John Brown (Ethan Hawke), we see his follower and friend Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson) say that as per the papers, Brown had no last words before he was hanged to death. This may be true. According to the Washington Post, Thomas Jackson, who would later become famous as Confederate General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, said: “Brown had his arms tied behind him, and ascended the scaffold with apparent cheerfulness. After reaching the top of the platform, he shook hands with several who were standing around him. The sheriff placed the rope around his neck, then threw a white cap over his head & asked him if he wished a signal when all should be ready -- to which he replied that it made no difference, provided he was not kept waiting too long.”
Brown, as per the paper, was not allowed to make a final statement as he stood on the gallows. John TL Preston, one of the founders of the Virginia Military Institute, which sent hundreds of cadets to provide security at the hanging, wrote of Brown: “His manner was without trepidation, but his countenance was not free from concern, and it seemed to me to have a little cast of wildness. He stood upon the scaffold but a short time, giving brief adieus [sic] to those about him, when he was properly pinioned, the white cap drawn over his face, the noose adjusted and attached to the hook above, and he was moved blindfolded a few steps forward.”
But the show, based on the 2013 novel of the same name by James McBride, imagines two versions of his final words and both have to do with Onion, the show’s narrator. One version is a conversation Brown has with Onion the night before his execution. Onion sneaks into the prison, and the two talk and pray. Brown seems unafraid of death. Rather, he welcomes it, saying that the six to nine minutes it would take for the noose to kill him would do more for the cause against slavery than his whole life. He was not wrong. Brown’s execution, as per many, was an important trigger for the American Civil War that would ultimately lead to the abolition of slavery.
After they pray, Onion asks Brown what he felt when he found out that he was a boy and not a girl - when they had first met, Brown had mistaken Henry for Henrietta, and the boy could not object because he was so shell-shocked, and later just continued with the conceit. Brown tells Onion that whoever and whatever he is, he should be it to the fullest. And that he never cared for Onion’s gender any more than he cared for his shoe size. He said that he loved him regardless.
The other imagined final words of Brown are what Onion imagines them to be, the moment before he was executed - he wasn’t allowed to be at the execution. He imagines Brown saying: “What a beautiful country.”
As per reports, when the trapdoor opened, Brown fell through about 25 inches. “With the fall his arms below the elbow flew up, hands clenched, and his arms gradually fell by spasmodic motions -- there was very little motion of his person for several minutes, after which the wind blew his lifeless body to and fro,” wrote Stonewall Jackson.
The series does not show this. And that is a good decision. We are left not with an image of a dead Brown. We are instead left with his ideas of equality, social justice, empathy, and tolerance. Of his belief in the freedom of all people. Of his love for Onion, irrespective of what his gender is and what he portrays it to be. Of his belief that the country could and would one day move past the grave injustice that it had done to a whole people.
‘The Good Lord Bird’ is a good story. And a story that everyone should watch and know.