We are a community defense organization based in Columbia, Missouri, rooted in direct action and mutual aid.

Read more about us.

The John Brown Mobile Soup Kitchen served thousands of individual meals in its three winters of operation before its hand-off to a non-profit.
Mid-MO JBGC holds two brake light clinics a year.
Brake light clinics to help limit traffic stops with law enforcement and avoid costly fines or incarceration that can result.
Regular group work at local services for the unsheltered community.
Who was John Brown?

Our namesake is abolitionist John Brown (b. 1800) who believed in armed revolt to overthrow the institution of slavery. Brown was active in the Underground Railroad and rallied in support of anti-slavery forces in Kansas during the Border War, when the territory was opened to allow enslavement. Days after the Sacking of Lawrence in 1856, a band of abolitionists led by Brown killed five slavery supporters. In 1859, Brown and a group of abolitionists attempted to raid a federal armory, hoping to supply arms to enslaved people in order to rebel. They were unsuccessful, and Brown was sentenced to death by hanging for insurrection, the 1856 killings, and “conspiring with Negroes to produce insurrection.” Their actions hastened confrontations over slavery that led to civil war.