5/25/19

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A new television series with Ethan Hawke starring as the fiery abolitionist John Brown is set to film in Virginia.

Gov. Ralph Northam’s office announced Thursday that production of the eight-part series will start in central Virginia this summer. The show based on the novel “The Good Lord Bird” by best-selling author James McBride and is set to air on Showtime at a later date.

Brown led a raid in 1859 on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, in what is now West Virginia, hoping to start an armed slave rebellion. The rebellion didn’t happen, and Brown was later hanged for treason.

Before the raid, Brown and a group of abolitionist settlers killed five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas in the Pottawatomie massacre.