In 1999, Martha Swan, a Spanish teacher in now in Newcomb, New York, founded John Brown Lives!, "to engage Adirondack communities in the freedom history of their region and to promote social justice and human rights." Sponsored programs and exhibitions, such as the recent “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” hosted by St. Lawrence University in 2012, help us understand that history. With support from the New York State Council on the Arts, among many benefactors, John Brown Lives! campaigns to free the 27 million men, women and children held in some form of slavery in the world today.
