'Good Lord Bird' Tells Fictionalized Tale of Gun-Toting, Bible-Wielding Abolitionist John Brown

Onion and John Brown in “Good Lord Bird.” Photo courtesy of Showtime.

(REVIEW) The life of John Brown — legendary White abolitionist and zealous Christian — has always read more like a tall tale than it has like something that belongs on the page of a history textbook. His raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry in 1859 was a failed attempt to begin a nationwide revolt of slaves, but is credited with heightening tensions that eventually led to the beginning of the Civil War. 

Brown’s status as folklore is likely all the more solidified in “Good Lord Bird,” a seven-episode miniseries that premiered on Showtime starting Oct. 4. 

The series is based off of the novel by the same name, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2013. Its first departure from history is the narrator of Brown’s story.

Henry “Onion” Shackleford is a young slave in Kansas who joins Brown’s militia after Brown is unintentionally complicit in the death of Onion's father. Onion’s nickname comes from the way he bites into a rancid onion Brown gives him as a good luck charm. Brown mistakes Onion for a girl on their first meeting, and he gives Onion his daughter’s dress and insists he wears it. Onion spends almost the rest of the series in a dress and posing as “Henrietta.” 

It’s played for laughs and likely speaks to the particular brand of crazy Brown was (he never asks Onion questions about his gender), but the cross dressing ends up helping Onion in various ways. When Onion briefly leaves the militia, he’s able to preserve the safety of himself and another slave because vigilantes are convinced he’s a woman; it also gets him a better job at a local tavern, cleaning and doing laundry as opposed to heavy labor or being trapped in a large pen with other slaves. 

But Onion insists on his manliness, and even falls in love with Brown’s daughter Annie, who he considers pursuing romantically by the time the series is over. 

There are plenty of other historical inaccuracies. Some details are changed to make for more convenient storytelling and to fill in historical information researchers just don’t know. As the disclaimer reads at the beginning of every episode, “ALL OF THIS IS TRUE. MOST OF IT HAPPENED.” 

The show also makes for riveting entertainment with incredible production value only enhanced by authentic performances and a soulful soundtrack — including Mahalia Jackson’s Gospel track “Come On Children, Let’s Sing” as its introduction. It concludes as a moving dark comedy that leaves questions lingering about Christianity, family and justice. 

Ethan Hawke, who co-created the show with Mark Richard, plays Brown as a man of single-minded devotion: he is sometimes deranged, sometimes gentle and fatherly, but always devout in his faith and determined to free every slave he can. 

The most fascinating thing about this portrayal of Brown is that any of his primary characteristics don’t reflect positively or negatively on who he is or what he does. During a skirmish, he steals the stopwatch of a dead slaveholder after speaking his own proverb aloud: “If you do not make time for God, God will not make time for you.”

It’s great that his faith isn’t the thing that makes him a lunatic, nor does the fact that he is a lunatic reflect negatively on religion or his mission. This seems likely, in part, because James McBride, the original author of the “Good Lord Bird” novel, is himself an avid churchgoer. Instead, these things are only truths about this character that make up a fascinating portrait with startlingly piercing blue eyes. 

Brown gives long-winded prayers before every meal, much to the dismay of his militia, believes that God has offered he and his men divine protection from attack and uses his faith to argue against slavery — “Would Jesus see this man as three-fifths human?” 

Beyond that, Brown and his children — several of whom are members of the militia or otherwise part of his crusade — have much of the Bible memorized and often quote passages or verses aloud depending on the circumstance. 

In some of these ways, Brown’s Christianity is something that only enhances the comedy of the show. A personal favorite is when, in the middle of a full-out gunfight, Brown tells Onion, “Your soul is more precious than your life.” He calls out to his son a corresponding reference, and the group struggles to recite the verse. All the while, they’re being shot at and shooting right back, the sides of buildings are blown off, and slaves escape as they’re able.

This kind of comedy seems better than some of the other ways the show has drawn on humor, though these are still enjoyable. Likely the most noticeable of these attempts to make the audience laugh is in Daveed Diggs’ (best known as Lafayette in Broadway’s “Hamilton”) portrayal of Frederick Douglass. 

Douglass, in the show, is a womanizer, a drinker and a frivolous orator. He’s portrayed well and doesn’t fail in being funny, but viewers looking for a somber portrait may not feel quite at home.  

Brown’s gunfight ends as he leads the charge in front of a cannon, commanding his enemy to “Git, in His Holy name! Git! For He is on the side of justice, and you are on the side of chains.”

It seems, for a while, that this divine protection Brown believed he and his men had was real and true. 

This focus on the Bible and living a godly life is something that carries over into Brown’s gentler moments. He takes Onion in like his own daughter and experiences a fit of rage over his safety when he realizes Onion has returned to Harpers Ferry to fight. What he wants most for Onion is to learn the Bible as well as he does. 

On a train headed North with Onion, he shows a father’s wholesome pride when Onion identifies the book of Job because it proves he’s been doing his Bible readings. 

In the same scene, a crew member on the train tries to force Brown and Onion out of the car because Onion is “a colored.” When another passenger points him out as John Brown, the crew member apologizes profusely to both of them and doesn’t make Brown move. People had heard his story were terrified of his vengeance.

These moments of contrast offer the most genuine human portrait. His role as an adoptive father doesn’t offer an excuse for his other behavior (including that it is his fault Onion’s real father was killed in the first place) but it serves rather as a reflection on the type of human being that was so devoted to this cause and what he was like beyond a historical figure.

The show ends as Brown’s story did, with the fatal failure at Harpers Ferry — which resulted in the deaths of most of the militia and the arrest of Brown, who was eventually hanged. In the show, Onion is the only one who is seen to have escaped without such fatal consequences. 

It isn’t something that Brown regrets; he says that the six to nine minutes before he dies as he hangs will be the most meaningful of his entire life. 

Onion visits him one last time in prison, and they pray together knelt on the floor. Onion, who is no longer wearing a dress, tells Brown that he never was a girl. Why didn’t he ask? 

“Whatever you are, Onion, be it in full,” he responds. 

That’s something John Brown unquestionably did — as a Christian, father and abolitionist. “Good Lord Bird” succeeds by giving all of these things equal, genuine treatment in its not-so-tall-tale. 

“Good Lord Bird” is now streaming on Showtime.

Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and Evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.