In recognition of the 150th anniversary of the ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry, the Springfield Museums will host the panel discussion Emergence of a Radical: John Brown in Springfield, on Sunday, Oct. 18, at 2 p.m., in the Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts. The program is free with museum admission.

Following the panel discussion, the Women of Faith Ensemble from St. John’s Congregational Church, which was named for John Brown, will perform gospel music and the audience will be invited to stay for a reception.  

The panel discussion will be moderated by Joseph Carvalho, historian and President of the Springfield Museums. The panelists are Wayne Phaneuf, historian and Executive Editor of The Republican; Todd Robinson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History, University of Nevada Las Vegas; and David S. Reynolds, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies, City University of New York.

Planned in conjunction with the special exhibition John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, on view at the new Museum of Springfield History, the panel discussion will highlight the pivotal period during the 1840s when the famous abolitionist John Brown lived in Springfield. Panelists will address Brown’s controversial approach to freeing the slaves and the moral implications of using violence in service of a cause.

Those wishing to see the John Brown exhibit in the new history museum should plan to do so before the panel discussion begins. Among the objects on view in the exhibit are the desk and safe Brown used while he worked as a wool merchant in Springfield.

The panel discussion and exhibit is sponsored by Mass Humanities, a state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The exhibit is also sponsored in part by Hampden Savings Foundation, Inc., the charitable foundation of Hampden Bank.