By Lucia Knoles and Pleun Bouricius

From our comfortable moral positions and in our comfortable American lives, many of us condemn violent political and social action. Some feel violence is crime, no matter how you slice it. Others draw a line between sanctioned violence with a public purpose (war, police apprehending
criminals) and the less regulated kind (terrorism, gang or ethnic/race war, rogue police). As soon as we step away from such convenient categories, however, the question of violence becomes a whole lot murkier very fast.

What about food riots? How do we draw the line between crime and necessary resistance? When does policing become state suppression? Are we sure that, given the same set of circumstances, we would not pick up a stick rather than argue? Where does arguing shade into fight? Is comparing a duly and newly-elected President Obama to genocidal dictators, as happened this past summer, in effect an incitement to assassination? Given that we celebrate the origins of our country in armed revolt, do most of us feel that armed resistance is an accepted method of last resort – last resort, but effective and legitimate? And how do we see others in this equation?

A short list of violent actors shows that serious consideration of how we think about the legitimacy of violent action is not only timely, but of the highest importance:

• The 9/11 hijackers
• Scott Roeder, accused of killing Dr. George Tiller in order to stop abortions
• People in New Orleans who tried to break down the gates around City Hall and punched sheriffs during City Councilhearing planning the demolition of lowincome housing.
• Former slaves who formed militia groupsin the reconstruction south to protect theirfamilies–and their rights
• The Black Panthers
• The people in the streets outside the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention
• Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City federal building bomber

Whether you regard these individuals or groups as terrorists or heroes depends in part on your political allegiances. Your position on these individuals and groups also depends, however, on your view of violence as a response to political and moral issues.

If you think the American Revolution was legitimate, consider the attempt at a second version: One hundred and fifty years ago, John Brown led his sons and a small band of followers into Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Brown’s plan was to destroy slavery by gradually building an army of freed slaves that would live and operate out of the Appalachian mountains, attacking slave owners until slavery no longer seemed tenable. Today, Brown’s guerilla tactics might seem familiar and potentially quite effective.

Although branded a terrorist by most Americans in his day, Brown was hailed as a hero by some abolitionists, including Henry David Thoreau. Today, although the moral status of slavery is no longer in any doubt, professional and amateur historians continue to debate the moral status of Brown’s actions: hero, villain, or madman.

Since issues of terrorism, the legitimacy of state violence (including torture), and political civility dominate our civic discourse, Mass Humanities is marking the anniversary of Brown’s raid as an occasion for reflection on civic violence around the state. Entitled “An (Un)Civil Action: A Closer Look at Violence in Massachusetts History,” these programs pair selections from the documentary, John Brown’s Holy War, with local, and often more mundane, acts of violence.

On November 14, after watching the film at the Springfield Museums, Springfield Armory historian Richard Colton took us to the site of the 1787 stand-off between Daniel Shays’ band of Massachusetts farmers, intent on getting to the arsenal, and the Massachusetts militia. Later, at Springfield Technical Community College, Amherst College Professor of History and American Studies Kevin Sweeney led us in a wide-ranging discussion of heroes and villains in the drama of the American nation. More about Shays’ Rebellion can be found at STCC’s Web site: shaysrebellion.stcc.edu.

On November 21, at Assumption College in Worcester, historian John McClymer worked with the participants on understanding what Brown might have been aiming at, followed by an exciting discussion of the political climate in Worcester in the 1920’s, one that favored sticks and stones. (Assumption College’s E Pluribus Unum Web site has more information: www1.assumption.edu/ahc.)

You don’t need to look far to find acts of civic violence in Massachusetts history, even leaving all matters Revolutionary aside: strikes turned violent, resistance to slave catchers, synagogue and grave defacing, school desegregation riots, general mayhem during the Boston Police Strike, strike suppression, house burnings. More educational events are being planned for other towns, notably North Adams, Lawrence, and New Bedford, for early Spring.