May 9

John Brown, Lizzie Magie, and Peppino Impastato

Author

David Barnhart
May 09, 2025

Fenway Victory Gardens, Boston, 2025. Own photo.

Today is the birthday of John Brown, in 1800, an abolitionist who organized and led a raid at Harpers Ferry, intended to be the opening salvo in a slave rebellion. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1866, of Lizzie Magie, a feminist and activist who supported a fairer economic system, and who created the Landlord’s Game, which would eventually be turned into Monopoly. Her game was originally intended to show the futility and frustration of capitalism, which is why the best-selling board game is only fun for a little while, until the unfairness of the system becomes apparent. 

On this day in 1978, Giuseppe (Peppino) Impastato was murdered by the mafia. As a journalist and whistleblower, he highlighted the corruption of Italian politicians and their connections to organized criminals.

Reflection: 

Peppino Impastato said: 

If we taught people beauty, we would provide them with a weapon against resignation, fear and silence. We should educate people to beauty: so that habit and resignation no longer creep into men and women, but curiosity and wonder always remain alive. 

When John Brown spoke to the court that sentenced him to death, he said, 

“This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!”

Lizzie Magie intended not only to illustrate the problems of an unfair tax system; she also intended to show the benefits of what is now known as Universal Basic Income, which would come from a single tax levied on land use. She wrote about her game: 

“The object of this game is not only to afford amusement to players, but to illustrate to them how, under the present or prevailing system of land tenure, the landlord has an advantage over other enterprises, and also how the single tax would discourage land speculation.”

Prayer: Liberating Spirit, you call people to oppose injustice where it appears and through many different means. Help us find yet more tools to encourage human beings to liberate themselves and the creation from oppression and enslavement. Amen.