Alane Ball Chinian, Capital Region director of the state Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and Martha Swan, founder/director of John Brown Lives! (Provided photo — Naj Wikoff)

When Martha Swan launched John Brown Lives! 25 years ago, little did she know that she’d be helping to revolutionize how friends groups of New York state historic sites operate.

Like most friends groups, JBL! helps interpret and promote the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, but few others have raised the bar in connecting the site’s importance to contemporary issues to the degree it does.

In his seminal book “Cloudsplitter,” Russell Banks humanized abolitionist John Brown by sharing his story through the eyes of his son Owen. Doing so and participating in a May 1999 event celebrating Brown organized by Banks was a revelation to Martha. It helped her understand Brown’s faith-based quest to address civil rights and end slavery, a quest in many respects that mirrored her own.

That summer, Martha learned that an exhibit of artifacts from the wreck of the slave ship Henrietta Marie, which sank off the southern tip of Florida in 1700 and was discovered in 1972, was coming to Albany. Further, Martha learned that Oswald and Marion Sykes, members of the National Association of Black Scuba divers who were instrumental in developing a memorial to the 200 enslaved people who died when the ship sank, lived near Albany. Martha invited them to come to Lake Placid in October 1999 and give a presentation about the Henrietta Marie.

Meeting and hearing the Sykes’ story cemented in her mind an idea brewing since May to launch an organization, John Brown Lives!, that would carry forward an annual celebration of John Brown’s birth and more, be an activist agency fighting for human rights.

Ren Davidson and Brendan Mills (Provided photo — Naj Wikoff)

For several years after, Swan rebuffed requests that JBL! become an official friends organization of the farm, as she feared possible limitations on her vision of a social action agency. In 2015, a deal was struck, with the signing of a memo of understanding with the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, resulting in John Brown Lives! becoming the official friends group of the farm. Since then, JBL! has become a friends agency like few others.

Swan’s vision of community engagement was very much on display during its quarter-century celebration held over the Oct. 12-13 weekend. On Saturday at the farm, activities began with a presentation by artist Ren Davidson on her latest installation, which details the torturous steps taken toward achieving the unfettered right to vote by all Americans, a reality that’s yet to be fully realized.

“I’ve known Martha for 20 years,” said Davidson. “I am one of the many who can testify to Martha’s tireless devotion to diverse programming that brings contemporary relevance to this historic site. ‘Spiraling Around the Promise of the Right to Vote’ is a record of facts — a hidden history for some and an aid to memory for others. Let these notes reach you across distance, time, and space and remind you of the immense privilege it is to vote.”

Davidson reminded people that John Brown and his family came to North Elba to enable free Black men to vote. In 1811, New York legislators passed a law to prevent free Black men from voting, a right they had had up to that point, saying they were doing so to prevent enslaved people from voting. In 1817, a law abolishing slavery in 1827 was passed, but Black men were again singled out, this time with a “Jim Crow” type of law stating that they could only vote if they owned land valued at $250. Abolitionist Gerrit Smith gave 120,000 acres of land in Essex and Franklin counties to circumvent this law.

In addition to Davidson’s installation, another major exhibit at the farm was Weasley and Odyssey Wofford’s “Beacon of Hope,” a 13-foot tall bronze sculpture of Brown’s good friend and ally Harriet Tubman that’s attracted many to the farm since July 5. JBL! organized various educational experiences over the summer and early fall to stimulate a greater understanding of Tubman and her activities. One was a celestial navigation workshop demonstrating how Tubman used stars to guide her journeys and help others achieve freedom. Key partners included Lake Placid Public Library’s children’s librarian Karen Armstrong, area school teachers and visiting scholars.

The weekend celebration closed with a presentation on Sunday afternoon by historian Tiya Miles on Tubman held at the Adirondack Community Church. Author of eight books about race and slavery in America and a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award, Miles spoke about Tubman’s connection to the natural world and the skills she learned as a child that contributed to her ability to bring other enslaved north and serve in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Jeff Jones, who helped Martha establish JBL! and has served on the board ever since, said, “I’ve had many rich, deep emotional and political experiences over the years that we’ve been doing this project. Whenever I think about this place, the emotional element is not just about John Brown, but of his wife, his kids, some of whom were killed or executed for going to Harpers Ferry, the other raiders buried here, and the deep connections made with visitors, especially the youth.”

“It was a pleasure to help Martha establish John Brown Lives!,” said Oswald “Ozzie” Sykes. “At the time, the discovery, resultant exhibition and creation of a memorial to the enslaved who died on the Henrietta Marie was big news. Front-page New York Times, everything. That’s when I met Martha. So it was a pleasure for us to come up and add to what she had in mind, and here we are 25 years later. We’ve developed a great friendship.”

Alane Ball Chinian, Capital Region director of parks, described John Brown’s farm as one of the most dynamic places of learning and progress in our evolution as people, a vibrancy made possible by the partnership between the farm and its friends group John Brown Lives!. She said that she loves the spirit of collaboration that, through Martha’s efforts, includes a wide array of agencies and diverse educational experiences, including art exhibitions.

“John Brown Lives! elevates what it means to be a friends group,” said Chinian. “Many parks and historic sites around the state have a friends group. We count on them to do supportive work, volunteer jobs and stewardship. But rarely is a group this engaged in the activation and interpretation of the property. Martha’s a real role model to me. Knowing how John Brown Lives! works on and with this property inform what we seek at other properties. It’s a helpful example of a functioning partnership. They push the envelope to be sure, and in doing so, they engage people and bring awareness of the site to a far larger audience.

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley and has been writing his column for the Lake Placid News since 2005.)