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"Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property" (2003) Complete Slave Revolt Docu-Drama
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murder of this family
I have a number
sleeping in the cradle that was
forgotten until we had left the house
and gone some distance when
Henry and will returned and killed it [Music]
[Music]
over the next 24 hours Nat Turner led a
small group of slaves from Farm to farm
killing every white man woman and child
they encountered
they gathered guns and more recruits
during a brief but bloody Revolt that
spread Terror throughout the slave
holding cell [Music]
[Music]
Nat Turner was captured and hanged in
the days before his execution he agreed
to tell his story you must surely bear
it but after his death his words became
the property of others as his body was
during his life
his story has been continually retold
since 1831.
he has been depicted as a great and
inspiring hero and vilified as an insane fanatic
fanatic
each author possesses Nat Turner
transforming his identity and the
meaning of his revolt
although today we cannot clearly make
out the face of the man he continues to
provoke a bitter debate over the
for a nation unable to come to terms
with the legacy of slavery Nat Turner
Nat Turner's slave rebellion triggered a
massive mobilization of local militia
and vigilante units in Virginia and
as many as three thousand armed men were
called into action to fight what turned
out to be 60 to 80 Rebels [Music]
[Music]
the balance of sheer military power was
weighted tremendously against the slaves
in this country
slaves don't have the organization the
access to Arms the military tradition to
be able to mobilize a successful
Insurrection slavery itself
was such an Abomination
that I could see how it would drive men
and women to do desperate things and
a slave revoked by its nature to me is a
pretty desperate Act [Music]
[Music]
outraged by the sight of the victims of
the Revolt including many badly
mutilated women and children the militia
and vigilante units engaged in a
Slaughter of Their Own [Music]
foreign [Music]
[Music]
brutal reaction is meant as a warning
it's meant to frighten those who might
be contemplating acts like this in the future
future
it's meant to demonstrate the power of
White Society [Music]
[Music]
at least 50 and perhaps many more slaves
and free blacks were summarily executed
in the days after the suppression of the Rebellion
Rebellion
there's no question that there's a cult
of violence that surrounds the tension
between black and white during slavery
times and after it's hard for us to
to Fathom cutting off people's heads and
putting them on poles parading them
around hanging bodies up in Chains
dismembering the body taking home souvenirs
we know all about the victims the white
victims of Turner's Rebellion who they
were where they were killed what their
names were what their families were
Nobody Knows the names of even all the
participants in the turn of rebellion
and certainly all the innocent blacks
who were killed or or imprisoned or or
beaten afterwards that this is not part
of our official historical memory that
that that piece of the story is just
forgotten or suppressed and probably can
never really be completely recovered
if a lot of those black people
were not the property of white people a
lot more than would be killed
wasn't it Virginia law that said if you
kill somebody's leave the state had to
reimburse them the cost of the slave or
something like that
well you approach please
every Rebel except Nat Turner was
quickly killed or captured during the
month of September and on into October
nearly 50 accused Rebels stood trial in
Southampton County
stand up [Music]
guilty is charged
you shall be hanged by the neck until
you entered the prisoner is guilty
the court does value the said slave to
the sum of 425 dollars
ultimately 19 While others were
transported and sold outside the
boundaries of the state the court
recommends to the governor that the
punishment be commuted to transportation [Music]
[Music]
and still Nat Turner remained at Large
on September 17 1831 Virginia governor
John Floyd issued a proclamation
offering a 500 reward for the capture of
Nat Turner
and that is between 30 and 35 years old
five feet six or eight inches high
weighs between 150 and 160 pounds with
rather bright complexion but not a mulatto
mulatto
broad-shouldered large flat nose large
eyes broad flat feet Governor Floyd's
description of Nat Turner is the closest
thing we have to a portrait of the man
but it is nothing more than a wanted
poster created to help white men capture
a fugitive
we do not know exactly what happened at
the capture of Nat Turner but a 19th
century engraving offers one possible
we do know it was not until October 30th
70 days after the outbreak of the
Rebellion that Benjamin Phipps stumbled
on to Nat Turner's hiding place
the slave had never wandered further
than a few miles from his home Farm
put it down
oh I said Put it Down [Applause]
[Applause]
the next morning he was taken to the
Southampton County Jail in Jerusalem to
await trial [Music]
[Music]
it was there in a jail cell that Nat
Turner first encountered a local lawyer
Thomas R Gray
over the next three days gray
interviewed Turner and then published
his version of Turner's story which
later became the main source for all
the late Insurrection in Southampton
greatly excited the public mind and led
to thousands of idol exaggerated
mischievous reports
everything connected to that sad Affair
was wrapped in a mystery until Nat
Turner the leader of that ferocious band
whose name resounded throughout our
widely extended Empire
was captured since its confinement with
permission of the Jailer I have had
ready access to him and determined for
the gratification of public curiosity to
commit his statements to writing
and published them with little or no
nobody cannot think say precisely why
Thomas R gray went into the jail cell on
November the 1st 1831 it could be that
he just wanted the public to know he
felt the public had a right to know
what Nat Turner had done from that turn
his own point of view
it could be that he sought prestige
after a great drop in his own
reputability by going in and making
himself as famous as he could by being
Nat Turner's emanuensis taking down what
he said he could have been thinking of
the income he might derive
you've asked me to give you the history
of the mode
to undertake the
the late Insurrection as you call it
to do so I must go back to the days of
my infancy and even before I was born
I was 31 years of age um
um
second October last
born the property of Benjamin Turner of
this County
being at play with other children when
three four years old
I was telling them something
which my mother over here and said it
had happened before I was born
I stuck to my story however and related
some things which went in her opinion to
confirm it
others being called on were greatly astonished
astonished
knowing that these things had happened
and caused them to say in my hearing
I surely would be a prophet
it's the Lord that showed me things that
many historians are not convinced that
all or even most of the words gray
attributes to Turner were actually
spoken by him
there is no Nat Turner
back there whole to be retrieved
you'd have to go and create that turn
and we have a very fragmented
fragmented um
um
disjointed narrative which purports to
be the confessions
and there's the question of
whose voice is there
I do not believe for a moment that Nat
it is very clear by now
that we cannot take
natrona's confessions
but it is also very clear
that we cannot cast it aside [Music]
[Music]
Grace confessions of Nat Turner creates
a definite image of the man but we can
never be sure the face we see is that of
Nat Turner
I was praying one day at my plow
Spirit spoke to me
saying seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven all
things shall be added unto you
what do you mean by the spirit
spirit that spoke to the prophets in
Nat Turner must have eaten up
the Christian and Hebrew scriptures
begun to feel and see and sense himself
as the embodiment of these
the Thunder rolled in the heavens
and blood flowed in streams
and I heard a voice saying such is your luck
luck
and let it come rough or smooth you must
surely bear it
while laboring in the field I discovered
drops of Blood on the corn
as though it would do from heaven and
communicated it to many both white and
black in the neighborhood
and I then found on the leaves in the
woods hieroglyphic characters and
numbers with the forms of men and
different attitudes portrayed in Blood and
and
representing figures I had seen before
in the heavens
and on the 12th of May 1828
I heard a loud noise in the heavens and
the spirit instantly appeared to me
and said that the serpent was loosened
and that Christ had laid down the Yoke
he had borne for the sins of man and
that I should take it on
and fight against the serpent
for the time was fast approaching
when the first should be last
was not Christ crucified
was not Christ crucified
that's an astonishing statement
by a man who's chained to the wall
you're going to be angry the next day
and he's told that all your comrades are
hanged that your wife has been sold
South that you will be hanged tomorrow
and he stands up I'm going to cut
can you imagine that is is one of the
Great Moments in human history
isn't it
any intelligent reader coming on the
confessions the original confessions of
Matt Turner
uh and then
reflects on those confessions for a while
while
this guy is a crazy lunatic
there's something really strange
uh his the moment when he when he says
to Mr Gray was not Christ crucified
the myths contradict each other and they
grow up you know he's a saint he he's a
a crazy man you know you get conflicting
reports and people repeat them they get
carried on and the historian has to peel
back through that onion and try to find
the real historical person and until the
first sign appeared
I should conceal it from the knowledge
of man and on the appearance of the sign
the eclipse of the sun last February I
should arise and prepare myself and slay
my enemies with their own weapons and
until we had armed and equipped
ourselves and gathered sufficient Force
neither age nor sex
was to be spared
when people bring that argument to me
that wall you kill people and while in
your train but that's declared you know
this this is my position now that's
declared you give people the chance
to know that I'm going to fight you or
that I might kill you
these people were not given that opportunity
opportunity
revolutions have to be thorough you
spare the kids they run off and warn
your enemies
if you're gonna if you're going to take
that road you'd better make up your mind
to take it to the end
that is the horror of the thing I mean
it's all well and good to say that these
killings were came out of Rage I don't
doubt that to a certain extent they did
but the real horror is that even if they
hadn't they would have they it matters
would have probably taken the same course
A revolution is either thorough or it's doomed
doomed
real revolutionaries know that
which is why they have to proceed in
the murder of this family
five in number
there was a little infant sleeping in a
cradle that was forgotten until we had
left the house and gone some distance
when Henry and will returned and
killed it
the killing of the women and children
sticking my crawl more than anything else
else
he would certainly be remembered better
by history if he had limited The Killing
to adult males or just off white adults
that evil that he saw was what was
needed to be destroyed
and the only way to force the
destruction of that evil was to make the
price so high
that those who was practicing slavery
would eventually sue for peace and says
we cannot keep slavery because it will
cost us too much the only thing I would
say is slavery was so wrong
started for Mrs Reese's way of finding
the door unlocked we entered and
murdered Mrs Reese in her bed while sleeping
sleeping
her son awoke
wasn't had only time to say who's that
I think that for many people many white
people they identify with the Innocence
they identify with innocent children
it's a position that's much more
comfortable than identifying with slave
holders and because that's a feature of
the story it makes it seem safe for
people who know that they have to stand
morally against slavery to say
nonetheless that there was something
morally wrong in the uprising I don't
think his goal is to kill white children
his goal was to give freedom for his
people and if uh you know way before
Malcolm even said it by any means
necessary and if that meant to killing a
white children so be it and um I mean it
was an uncompromising position and I
think it was based on something that he
had seen around him the killing of black
children the selling of black children
and uh it was reprehensible but he you know
know
calm liberate composure
which he spoke of his late deeds and intentionally
intentionally
expression on his feet like face when
I'm excited by enthusiasm still bearing
the stains of the blood of helpless
innocence about him
clothed in rags wrapped in Chains
yet daring to raise His manacled Hands
to Heaven with a spirit soaring above
I looked on him and my blood curdled in
complete fanatic
I was struck with the tug that Nat
Turner had over him and so I remember
thinking even as he was trying to
present him uh as this figure this
misguided fanatic as he called him uh he
was still fascinated with him impressed
by him
in some way
over and over again those who search for
the meaning of Nat Turner begin their
inquiry with a search for the meaning of
the confessions
I see Turner's confessions as our
confessions of not really being quite sure
sure
who we are in relationship to each other
black and white in this country [Music]
[Music] please
we know very little about the hanging of
Nat Turner the only contemporary account
appeared in a local newspaper and as
with all Nat Turner's stories we are
the record about Nat Turner is so
ambiguous we have so few facts and yet
he's at the center of such an enormous
controversy that there's room for lots
of different interpretations [Music]
created a national debate on the
morality of slavery with her novel Uncle
Tom's Cabin
when she published dread a tale of the
Dismal Swamp in 1856 with the title
character closely based on the
historical Knack Turner she confronted
the question of ending slavery by
violent means
but she could not Embrace an
uncompromising black man who was devoted
to the death of all white people and so
she softened him considerably
he was a tall black man of magnificent
stature and proportions he wore a
fantastic turban
there were elements in him which might
under other circumstances have made him
a poet
there was in him a vein of that
gentleness which softens the heart
towards children and the inferior animals
but they're also burned in him like
tongues of flame in a black pool of
naptha a subtle and Restless fire [Music]
[Music]
everyone possesses Nat Turner because he
fits into the role each Creator wants to
make him fit into
the amazing thing about Matt Turner is
the fact that so little is known about him
him
we have those confessions
and virtually nothing else
then there are almost no accounts of
what he was like seen Through The Eyes
of anyone else black or white so this is
as I say
an astounding um
um
Boone and a gift to anyone who wanted to
to to use him as a metaphor or a symbol
for anything having to do with slavery
with having to do with freedom having to
do with uh Rebellion
he fits
no mold and fits every mold all at once
and that's what has made him so intriguing
intriguing
to to so many people over the years
in the Years leading up to the Civil War
Frederick Douglass and other black
abolitionists repeatedly voiced
admiration for Nat Turner and other
slave Rebels
what Douglas said was that the NAT
Turners were actually more legitimately
The Heirs of the American Revolution
than the whites who celebrated July 4th
every year in the 1840s and 50s but
owned slaves and deprived millions of
Americans of their freedom
continuing in the tradition of Frederick
Douglass William Wells Brown an
abolitionist leader who had escaped from
slavery invoked an heroic image of Nat
Turner in an essay written during the
Civil War
in the midst of this essay he
imaginatively constructed the speech
Turner might have delivered to his
fellow conspirators at cabin pond
friends and brothers
we are to commence a great work tonight
our race is to be delivered from slavery
and God has appointed us as the men to
do his bidding
and let us be worthy of our calling
we're gloried in these Heroes as
children will sometimes we would create
among ourselves we Boys in particular
you know
uh our own version of what Nat did and
what we would have done if we'd have
been known that and how that would have
satisfied us greatly
while some African Americans invoked Nat
Turner's name as a great black hero and
Liberator most southern whites continue
to portray him as a fanatic and villain
who attacked and essentially benevolent
institution this became the dominant
white view throughout the nation during
the late 19th and 20th centuries [Music]
[Applause]
Black Folk memories of the rebellion
surfaced in the WPA interviews of
ex-slaves conducted during the 1930s [Music]
[Music]
the WPA undertook the task of finding
and questioning black residents of the
South who had once been slaves
sometimes the interviews produced
memories that were obviously passed on
by family members who lived at the time
of Nat Turner's revolt [Music]
[Music]
sometimes these Recollections explored
the violence in Turner's insurrection
in 1937 the ex-slave Alan Crawford spoke
about Nat Turner from stories he had
heard growing up in Southampton County [Music]
[Music]
first place he got to was his mistress's house
house
said God damned him
to start the first war with 40 men
well when he got to his mistress's house
he commenced to grab his missus's baby
and he slung him back and forth three times
said it was hard for him to kill this baby
baby
because he had been so playful when he
was sitting on his lap so
so
third sling
the 1930s were a turbulent time in
America it was an era of segregation
when the seeds of change were beginning
to be sown
during this time of racial Strife
artists writers and playwrights were
inspired to tell the story of Nat Turner
and his Revolt exploring the
consequences of using violence to end
in 1935 black theater educator Randolph
Edmonds presented the Nat Turner story
as a play written to be performed at
schools and colleges [Music]
in the climactic scene Edmonds turns his
attention to the horrible consequences
of the Rebellion for the men and women
you ain't nothing but a beast
it's like
a beast
a beast she called me a beast if I'm a
beast who made the one if they buy and
sell me women like dogs and female
they're leaving
just as dead
what am I going to do now Lord
look at that Moon coming back to light
big and Round And Yellow
I've been drift out
my hands are full of blood too
was I wrong law to fight the black men
must be free
show me a vision Lord like a deer when
the spirits were fighting in there talk
to me Holy Ghost s
it must be the Army looking about in the
woods for me I can't let them catch me
has got to get me an army and fight
someone for freedom I want you to be
free I must have freedom for all the
black slaves show me how to get along
spirit of God show them the way God got
there certainly was a real Nat Turner
who lived and died in Southampton County
but the man who lived and died in
numerous artistic portrayals since 1831
was recreated over and over again to fit
come on together
the decade of the 1950s was a watershed
in our nation's troubled history of race
relations during these years the Civil
Rights Movement began a full-scale
assault on the elaborate system of
exposed repeatedly to images of violence
during these years [Music]
it was in this atmosphere that a growing
number of frustrated African-Americans
sought inspiration from Nat Turner and
the 1831 Southampton slave revolt
I never heard of that and wanted to know
more about them
and started just reading about him and
what happened in Southampton County
there was a debate going on among the
young people in different civil rights
organizations the young people about
black Consciousness and and and versus
integration and what direction they
should move in in order to keep the
movement going and to keep liberating
revoke symbolize resistance it was a
black man who refused acceptance
condition so we identified with that
brother and we saw Mr brother we saw a
direct link we knew exactly what he felt
like because we felt the same way and we
saw ourselves as continuing that struggle
struggle [Music]
usually the police wouldn't fertilize
anyone if we were on hand because we
were armed [Applause]
[Applause] natural
natural
center of the national stage with the
publication in 1967 of William styron's
the confessions of Nat Turner the novel
was an instant bestseller and won the
Pulitzer Prize
it's hard to reconstruct the Bland
ill-informed atmosphere of suburban
White America in the 50s and 60s and
and
it came as a revelation to
really almost the whole generation that
they should even be thinking about these
things it was through the book of the
month club that I got this novel called
the confessions of Nat Turner I remember
when it arrived and I started reading it
that evening after I got home from
school and I stayed up all night and I
read it in one sitting
my intention had been from the very
beginning to try to present a
multi-faceted complex overview of
slavery as an institution
which totally degraded a race of people
and that included such torment upon one
of its more gifted Sons namely Nat
Turner that it indeed
turned him into
a half-crazed Avenger
Avenger
my book turned him into a far more
heroic figure than the actual Nat Turner
was because I gave him human dimensions
he didn't humanize metronome for me
because I came to the novel with my own
version of nocturnal firmly established
in my head
so to whom did he humanize to the white
community that might be possible since
the white Community has always tended to
look upon our Rebels you know as demons
and as sub-humans as people who are
attacking the bastions of white civilization
civilization
when I was growing up
I was taught in American history books
that Africa had no history and neither
did I
that I was a Savage
about whom the less said the better
who had been saved by Europe
and brought to America
and of course I believed it
I didn't have much choice
those are the only books there were
I am one of the people who built the country
country
Jimmy Baldwin moved into my house here
in Connecticut the winner of 1960
because the people by this time I was
boiling to write the book
and I think it was he who encouraged me
more than anyone else to seize the idea
of the first person and to plunge into that
that
kind of uh narrative mode because he
himself had already
begun to deal with the idea of writing
about white people from an intimate
point of view
and he said that what you should do
as a white writer is to uh to be bold
and take on the Persona of a black man
William styron gave his 20th century
novel the same title as Thomas R Gray's
1831 confessions
examining this document for clues about
Nat Turner siren was fascinated by a
Miss Margaret
and I discovered her
and concealed herself in the corner form
by the projection of the seller cap from
on my Approach she fled but was quickly overtaken
overtaken
I killed her by a blow on the head with
a fence rail
Margaret was the only person killed by
Nat Turner in the course of the
Rebellion she was a young white woman
styron takes this and makes a love
affair out of it between Nat and
Margaret I think African Americans
generally and whites to some extent
resented the relationship that styron created
created
this was for a novelist the perfect
a question to ask why why did he do this
wasn't there some relationship between
the two of them
now we don't know anything about their
relationship but I was writing a novel I
wasn't writing a work of historiography
and I had a right
to to make a relationship between Nat
and Margaret Whitehead a kind of
centerpiece of the book
did I ever tell you about the mass that
wonderful
there's once more of a lot she was staring
staring
her eyes met mine unflinchingly
not so much coquettish as insistent in
fighting daring and almost expecting my
gaze to Repose in her own eyes why she
prattled blissfully on
it was the longest encounter I could
remember ever having or the white
person's eyes it's just Grand I turned
away swept with lust again hating her guts
guts
now it's driven close to distraction by
that chattering monologue pitched at a
girlish whisper which I no longer
s attempt to imagine a relationship
between Nat Turner and the teenaged
Margaret Whitehead provoked a storm of
protest from black critics
Nat Turner is one of our great Heroes
and we wanted him to be presented to our
children in a way that preserved and
protected our needs and our Necessities
we need to say to our young girls
you're beautiful you know your hair is
Snappy of course your skin is black but
you are beautiful
and you're lovable and worthy of the respect
respect
of our young men
but how could we say that if our great hero
hero
a set of affirming the beauty of black Womanhood
Womanhood
went and affirmed the beauty of white Womanhood
Womanhood
when I got the information from the book
of the month club just reading about the
book made me so angry that I tore up the
newsletter flushed it down the toilet
and wrote a letter resigning from the
book of the month club in protest
against them picking this book got
tremendous with everybody all all the
critics loved it you know
and this says this tells me a great deal
about attitudes they themselves have
never come to grips with slavery what it
was about
but not all reviewers lavished Praise on
the novel a group known as the 10 black
writers published a volume deeply
critical of styron's image of the slave Rebel
Rebel
it's a book that made me particularly
indignant because it was so disappointed
because it finally Nat Turner is going
to get presented on the main stage of
American culture
and instead of which we get this travesty
I recall one of my former owners Mr
Thomas Moore once saying that Negroes
never committed suicide
I recollect the exact situation
whole killing time and Moore's puckered
pockmark face as he labeled at the
bloody caucus and the exact words spoken
you ever heard of a [ __ ] killing himself
no I figured doctor he might want to
kill himself but he gets to thinking
about it keep thinking about it thinking
and thinking and pretty soon he's going
to sleep
ain't that right now
yes sir Master Tom that's right Shona
I had to admit to myself that I'd never
known of a negro who had killed himself
and in trying to explain this fact I
tended to believe that in the face of
such adversity it must be a Negros
Christian faith which swerved him away
from the ideal self-destruction
but now
as I sit here amid the incessant murmur
and the buzz of flies I can no longer
say that I feel this to be true
it seemed that rather my black
shit-eating people were surely like flies
flies
God's mindless Outcast lacking even that
will to destroy by their own hand their
unending anguish
how would anybody seek into organizes
people to struggle for their own
Liberation have that perception of them
it was
an act of arrogance
coming out of a profound ignorance that
led him to think he could restructure
that experience and anything that would
be a credible way are a way that
reflected anything that an informed
black person would know
of our own experience and don't make it
acceptable to black people
novels can be good novels can be bad but
I think it's different to say that than
to say you shouldn't have written this
in the first place because you were
white or what are you doing to our history
history
by creating this
um character about whom we feel deeply
ambivalent and believe me I think that
it was the sexuality
of that turn of the bug people the most
no matter how they justify it I think
that without that the novel would pass
the place where her breasts had met my
arm was like an incandescence
tingling I can't always smothered by
remorseless desires New York City
insanely I found myself measuring the
risk taker take her here on this bank by
Abandon All for these hours of Terror
and Bliss
you should read some of my poetry
sometimes being attracted to and
repelled by uh members of the opposite
sex it strikes me as the most natural
thing in the world
and to have left that out to have
rendered Turner incapable of that kind
of internal struggle would have reduced
his Humanity
I think starring knew exactly what he
was doing I think he did the right thing
we have to deal
black people with so much of this kind
of stuff not so much in writing but in
our everyday lives
with siren had done was play at the
worst fears of White America and I think
frankly fantasizing in his own mind is a
white male about the lustful feelings
I didn't want a white woman you know and
I didn't know any of my brothers who did
and um
he but he did you know he said the NAT
wanted one and not only did he want one
that he was willing to kill for it and
not only that that was his primary
motivation Liberation was irrelevant it
was it was sexual unbridled sexual lust
or something like that
uh what really would have uh caused rage
on the part of the black critics would
have been I think
if if they had had a consummated sexual relationship
relationship
um which would really have proved
um the my own racism but uh actually the
the relationship between that Turner and
Margaret Whitehead is infinitely more
complicated it's it's as much filled
with rage and hatred on that spot than
no
he does at the end realize the horror of
and I think that Nat Turner's feeling of
of of Love at the end is really
uh an attempt to express his own sense
of of of
reconciliation Redemption
and has very little to do with any um
um any
any
direct human connection I think this is
an abstraction
at least that's what I was attempting to do
let me is a great irony that I began to
write Nat Turner the summer of Martin
Luther King's great speech in Washington
and it was a time of reconciliation of
non-violence peacefulness the sense that
blacks and whites could work this thing
but by the time I finished the novel in
1967 this sweetness and light that
Martin Luther King was predicting had
turned into a kind of hellish Nightmare
on the racial scene and so Nat Turner appeared
appeared
Minot Turner appeared at a time when
this this dream of of Martin Luther
King's had evaporated
so uh there was good reason why my book
I do think that in an extraordinary and
strange way Bill styron did do a service
in the sense of putting Nat Turner back
on the
table without making people argue about
who he was and nobody no matter which
side they took of the argument really
knew very much it was like people
throwing punches in the dark
and in the last generation since then
we've learned a lot more though we still
have not penetrated the veil entirely
we can be dependent on white people to
represent our culture with with
integrity and Imagination and and respect
respect
if you don't like Bill Sirens Nat Turner
write your own
I think the only way that you can fight
um a representation in art that you
don't like is to create new art create
more art surround it
I don't consider myself an artist I
don't consider myself as a
one who can critique art
I only paint for one reason and one
what is said through to me through my ancestors
ancestors
they're not asking for Revenge they're
asking to be recognized
and I believe they will not rest in
peace unless their story is heard unless
their voices are
are
but can any work of art move Americans
closer to an agreement on the meaning of
Nat Turner and his revolt [Music]
[Music] Sally
[Music]
yeah one more time right away here we go
ready ready I think there is a need for
closure there is a need to to resolve
this thing sometimes it takes a mediator
a piece of artwork and do that the whole
idea is who isn't that Turner we don't
know and people with little information
have created their own net and they've
claimed it
and it's not that we're trying to
reclaim that we're just trying to
present other artists interpretation of
that Terror and trying to do that very
Faithfully without interpreting their
everywhere in the film there is
interpretation and the subject matter we
are dealing with is interpretation
now when you do a film
about interpretation
what's the film about that
interpretation isn't that film another
interpretation I'm really unconscious of
the pain that you're causing this little
kid Mark and so that's the statistic
part about this whatever every
interpretation ultimately forces you
back into another interpretation another
interpretation another interpretation action
action [Music]
[Music]
thank you
Reverend ballad my wife
that's the tension here is to say that
no you're not doing your movie about Nat
Turner you're doing William starring's
interpretation Annette Turner as
faithful as possible to William Styles
same thing with Thomas are gray you're
trying to be matter of fact about Thomas
R gray you know you're not trying to
take any kind of license recreate these
uh different sources in that tunnel you
know the Publications and things like
that we can't say in this film that this
person is wrong and that person is wrong
it's not about that the truth is that
this event happened people interpreted a
certain way on racial lines and the only
way to resolve or to live with it is to
have some sort of dialogue and come to
terms with what was this event mark
I think there's a great danger of
sliding into a kind of relativism and
there are multiple different versions of
history and let's just line them all up
and I think that the great challenge
would be how to devise a structure that
permits some degree of interpretation
and reflection on multiple perspectives
without implying there was no truth of
the matter
the fact is there was a historical net Turner
Turner
the fact is that certain things were
known about him
the fact is that as a consequence
of his actions he occupied
a very prominent and important role in
the collective memory and Imagination of
the black community and perhaps possibly
in the white Community too
I think the mysteriousness of the man
the absolute mysteriousness of the man
will perpetually provoke people's
imagination he represents an incredible
need and hunger
just the fact that he did what he did
right or wrong
or whatever the moral implications of
what he did he did it
and it seems to me that trying to figure
out Turner
and his meaning
for those who lived and died
is an arduous task and
and
that whether we like it or not is what
we're called to
[Music] [Applause]
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foreign [Music]
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foreign [Music]
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[Applause] [Music]
[Music]
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