Politics

JONATHAN TURLEY: Speaker Jeffries' brother sounds chilling call to arms

Libs of TikTok flagged the post in which Hasan Kwame Jeffries said Brown 'was right then' and 'is right now'

By Jonathan Turley Fox News

Published May 23, 2026 11:29am EDT

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Hasan Kwame Jeffries, an Ohio State University history professor and the brother of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined the call of many on the left for citizens to rise up and fight the system "by any means necessary." However, Jeffries added a menacing element in calling for citizens to emulate John Brown, who murdered white farmers who supported slavery. He is not the first academic to use Brown as a model for political action today.

In a social media post flagged by Libs of TikTok, Jeffries declared that "John Brown understood that the only way to free Americans from the scourge of White supremacy was to get rid of White supremacists by any means necessary. He was right then. He is right now."

Hasan Jeffries speaks onstage at "The Future of the Civil Rights Movement" during the 2023 SXSW Conference and Festivals at The LINE Austin on March 12, 2023 in Austin, Texas. (Travis P Ball/Getty Images for SXSW)

The posting was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled rationalization for political violence, a dangerous contribution to an age of rage marked by rising attacks, including assassinations.

Other academics have pushed Brown as a model for activists in fighting racism, oligarchy, and other ills in society.

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Stacey Patton, professor of journalism at Howard University, previously pushed this model in a blog titled "John Brown Didn’t Ask Enslaved People How to Be A Good White Ally." Patton scolded White liberals to stop asking how to be a better "ally" to minorities.

"It’s a question that always lands heavy. Not because I doubt their sincerity, but because the question itself is still a form of protection that centers the asker’s confusion instead of the target’s danger," Patton wrote. "It’s a request to be taught, forgiven, and reassured, again and again. It’s another round of homework assigned to the wounded…It’s exhausting as hell because it’s still a form of emotional outsourcing."

Brown is best known for his pivotal role in the period known as "Bleeding Kansas"........

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