Introduction : cause and consequence : John Brown in nineteenth-century America
Some definite plan : the early life of John Brown
The final arbiter : Bleeding Kansas and the creation of the old hero
Not buried but planted : cultivating the legend of John Brown
A saint in suspense : competing visions of John Brown
Discrimination and destiny : John Brown and the NAACP
The soul rests : Stephen Vincent Benét and the silencing of John Brown's body
The fugitive imagination : a John Brown for the old South
Revising Kansas : John Steuart Curry and the fanaticism of John Brown
Together under arms : Jacob Lawrence paints Black history
Epilogue. Climax and harbinger : a life as a common cause.