Invisibles
On the rainy night of October 16th, 1859, eighteen men marched under the cover of night into the Virginia town of Harpers Ferry, where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers meet. Their mission was to seize the federal armory, steal hundreds of newly-made weapons, and carry them off into the Shenandoah mountains to arm a slave rebellion that would engulf the nation. However, John Brown’s dream of taking the fight to slave power did not go according to plan. The raid failed, and the twenty-four men and women that supported his vision either died, or spent their remaining years haunted and wounded by the events of that night. But where they had occasional concerns on the execution of the plan, or its outcomes, they never doubted its rightness or reason.
This series portrays the 24 men and women that helped plan and execute the raid on Harpers Ferry, developed while serving as the 2018 Artist-in-Residence at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, part of the National Park Service. This series is named for Annie Brown, one of John Brown’s daughters. She spent the summer prior to the raid on Harpers Ferry living with the raiders, tasked as a lookout to ensure the locals didn’t get suspicious. Over that summer, she grew very close to each of them, and years later recalled them as “my invisibles” in telling her story. She died in 1926, always guarding the family legacy. The official narrative of Harpers Ferry frequently omits her, as well as all the men and women that supported John Brown. So, ‘Invisibles’ is my attempt to take these men and women, and try to cast light on their lives and stories.
For further reading, please read "The Invisibles of the Harpers Ferry Raid," an interview with artist Shaun Slifer.
