John Brown

An unfinished script for a dramatic film on the life of this significant American figure. Toward the end of his life, Hurwitz applied for and received a grant from the National Endowment on the Humanities to begin a project on the life of the complex American character, John Brown. Brown was perhaps the foremost white activist against slavery in the period before the Civil War. He was undoubtedly courageous. He undoubtedly failed in his attempt to begin a guerilla war against the slave system in the South, recruiting escaped slave fighters. His death became one of the inspirations in the fight against slavery that culminated in the Civil War. Hurwitz used the characters of W.E.B. DuBois and Frederick Douglas to explicate the historical theoretical issues that he felt needed to be covered by the film. He died before the script could be completed.