The new-release movie Birth of a Nation is garnering controversy not because of its subject - the 1831 Virginia slave rebellion led by Nat Turner - but because of the somewhat chequered past of its director, who also plays title role.
Birth of a Nation's director and lead actor, Nate Parker
Director Nate Parker's movie was acclaimed at Sundance Film Festival as a sure Oscar contender. But now,
Allegations that Parker, 36, raped a female student in 1999 when he was a college wrestler at Penn State now threaten to derail the awards-season potential of Birth of a Nation — once an early front-runner for best picture at the 2017 Oscars — and damage his career.
Parker was acquitted in 2001, but so what? To the Left - which is almost all of Hollywood - he is a rapacious black man who should not receive such high acclaim so early in his career. As the article points out,
Birth of a Nation “is really his coming-out party as an artist,” says Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. “With Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, it happened later in their career after they had already established themselves.”
In other words, Parker is being uppity, isn't he, libs? I get it. A man found not guilty of what would have been an unspeakable crime, if he had done it, which he didn't, just doesn't know his place. But that's the Left for you. And even worse in the Leftist class-persecution persecution mind is that despite his acquittal, Parker won't do the right thing and act as if he is guilty and apologize for a crime he didn't commit.
In the days leading up to his film's opening, Parker did interviews on 60 Minutes and Good Morning America. In neither appearance was he willing or able to convey a clear and effective message of regret for long-ago mistakes or concern for his accuser, who committed suicide in 2012.
Asked by GMA co-host Robin Roberts about his seeming lack of empathy, Parker sidestepped the question, referring Roberts to comments he had made the previous evening on 60 Minutes (another network's show). When Roberts persisted, Parker declared, "I was falsely accused, I was proven innocent and I'm not going to apologize for that." Unsurprisingly, that refusal to apologize — which to Parker is said to be a matter of staying true to himself — has been the focus of subsequent media reports... .
To Amy Ziering, a producer on the 2015 campus-rape documentary The Hunting Ground, Parker has failed to address critical issues. "I had hoped that Parker's discussion of the film and his past would address our culture's toxic history of both racism and sexual/gender violence — and the ways these two issues importantly intersect," she says in an email to THR. "Unfortunately, he has put forward a lot of carefully constructed rhetoric, which at times rings hollow and falls short."
Director Judd Apatow also seems to point toward the road not traveled. "He has an opportunity to teach young men about the meaning of consent," Apatow wrote on Twitter on Oct. 5. "He could do something that would help so many people."
Which is to say that even though Parker was accused, tried and acquitted of rape, this somehow obligates Parker to a lifetime of penance for sexual assault anywhere by anyone.
But let's move on to Nat Turner, the historical figure portrayed in the movie. I studied Turner whilst a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School in a class on the black religious experience in America. And whatever else Turner's revolt may have been, it was foundationally a religiously-motivated revolt.
So herewith the text of my paper on Turner and the revolt, with citations removed but sources end-noted:
Nat Turner was born a slave in Southampton County, Va., on Oct. 2, 1800, the son of native Africans. He became a skilled carpenter as well as a preacher. He died on Nov. 11, 1831, having led the deadliest slave revolt in United States history. Turner stood about five and one-half feet tall and weighed about 155 pounds, according to the reward notice posted after the rebellion. His hair was thin and he was clean shaven.
Turner’s theological perspective
Turner believed from an early age that he was marked for religious distinction. In his “Confessions” orally given to Thomas Gray while awaiting execution, Turner said,
Being at play with other children, when three or four years old, I was telling them something, which my mother overhearing, said it had happened before I was born. . . others being called on were greatly astonished, knowing that these things had happened, and caused them to say in my hearing, I surely would be a prophet, as the Lord had shewn [sic] me things that had happened before my birth.
Later, Turner became a preacher, although it is not known whether he was actually licensed by any denomination to preach.
[1]
He had learned to read and write at an early age, apparently illegally taught by his owner’s son. In those days, the reading primer and speller were the Bible. Turner became an avid reader, noted for uncommon intelligence.
Turner was a “religious leader, often conducting services of a Baptist nature and exhorting his fellow workers. It appears that even White people were influenced, if not controlled, by him.” Turner himself said his preaching led a white man to be subjected to a “cutaneous eruption” on his skin, from which blood oozed. “After praying and fasting nine days, he was healed.”
Turner was once hired out (not sold) to another slave holder about 1826, but ran away and was a fugitive for 30 days. He had ample opportunity to escape to the north, but incredibly returned to his owner. Turner said, “But the reason of my return was, that the Spirit appeared to me and said I had my wishes directed to the things of this world, and not to the kingdom of Heaven, and that I should return to the service of my earthly master–‘For he who knoweth his Master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes, and thus have I chastened you’ (emphasis original). There followed a dream in which there was thunder in Heaven and blood flowed in streams. Turner came to believe he had been chosen by God to be a liberator. “He began to share his secret intentions with his fellow slaves” and told them “something wonderful was about to happen” that would free them.
By 1828, Turner was irrevocably sure that he was to “take up Christ’s struggle for liberation of the oppressed.” In May of that year, said Turner, “I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching, when the first should be last and the last should be first.” This theology of reversal was prominent not only in Turner’s thought, but in slave religion generally.
Turner’s theology included elements of astrology. He continually searched the skies for signs. There was a solar eclipse on February 12, 1831. Turner said this eclipse was a sign, “I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons.” After the eclipse, Turner advised his followers (apparently for the first time) of his plans for the revolt. All joined him. They eventually rebelled on Sunday, Aug. 21.
Turner’s theology also included many elements of African shamanism. Slave religion in his day was “an African product in Christian dress . . . a secret force in the days of slavery.” Turner promulgated his plan in secret meetings with other slaves. Secret meetings and societies were a fact of African religious life of nearly “every tribe” between the Niger and Senegal. These secret meetings were central to African spiritism.
[2]
Turner not only saw himself as an Old Testament-style prophet, he conformed to many patterns of African shamanism: medicine man (healer and spiritual interpreter), ecstatic prophecy (a preacher in the hands of a spiritual power), observer of signs and wonders, receiver of visions and revelations.
It is unclear whether Christianity or shamanism held the most sway over Turner's theology. They were so closely woven that they cannot be pulled apart, perhaps even forming a “new religion” that was Turner’s alone. From his African religious roots Turner learned a tradition of personal reception and use of spiritual power from an unseen spiritual realm and the dramatic necessity of personal legend for leadership within that tradition. From Christianity Turner learned of divine justice and judgment. In Turner's mind God could be just even to the point of cruelty; hence Turner's unblinking orders to “kill all Whites we encounter, without regard to age or sex." Turner’s Christian soteriology was based mostly on an eschatological view of human affairs: God intends blacks to be saved, and God will bring about their salvation in human time, through the actions of men appointed to that task (yes, men, for Turner was just as patriarchal as anyone). Turner was such a man, he thought. In that light, Turner did not believe he was leading an insurrection. He was conducting the battle of Armageddon for Southampton County.
Turner's theology was not systematic in any sense; it was experiential. Turner and most other slaves saw God as very present in their sufferings and oppression. Their experiences of slavery were also their experiences of God, especially of Christ, whom the slaves identified exactly with God: “Jesus” and “God” were used interchangeably with no metaphysical distinction. Turner saw himself as God's instrument for liberation.
The theological foundation for Turner's rebellion was ignored or dismissed by whites after the rebellion was crushed. Turner's band killed about 60 whites and took food and weapons and similar provisions. However, neither Turner nor any of his followers raped, pillaged or plundered, nor destroyed property wantonly. If not for these things, then for what, whites wondered. Ultimately, they concluded that Turner's motives were undiscoverable.
Turner’s approach to social transformation of oppressed groups
Turner was the first black preacher to blame the slaves for continuing to be slaves. For Turner, the law of God ordained freedom; Turner held that the slaves were too content with their lot and that their contentment offended God. Slavery was sustained by both the masters and the slaves. The slaves must free themselves under a God just even to the point of cruelty.
Turner's model for liberation was simple: direct action. It is not clear how Turner defined success for his revolt. He apparently hoped to found a new republic inside Virginia for blacks and sympathetic whites. How he intended to found and defend it he never explained. However, at his trial, Turner said, “Concerning the insurrection I did it to call attention of the civilized world to the serious condition of my people.” This admission leads me to conclude that Turner’s real objective was the rebellion itself, and that Turner, for all his self-confidence, never actually thought the insurrection would be anything other than what it turned out to be.
In order to gain enough men to mount the insurrection, Turner emphasized and reinforced belief in his special selection by God to lead the slaves to liberation. His belief in his own leadership was present from early childhood—he recounted that as a child he never stole things like his friends, but they begged him to go on their stealing expeditions because he could plan their efforts better than they could.
The slaves’ religion emphasized elements of African shamanism and Christianity, as did Turner's own. From the Christian tradition, the Moses model was very powerful. From the African tradition, the spiritual prophet was equally powerful. Turner believed he was a Moses for Virginian slaves and possessed of special shaman’s powers. Not only that, but he staged dramatic opportunities to reinforce this idea in the minds of others slaves.
In this sense, then, Turner's idea of social transformation was basically cultic, centered on and around himself. He never attempted to appeal to transcendent ideals of white civilization, as did Martin Luther King, Jr. King rested his conceptions of liberation on the already inherent (but unrealized) ideals of American society. Turner had no dream such as Martin, not even for his loosely conceived idea of a new republic. Turner’s vision did not extend much further than the people he personally knew—apparently he harbored only vague thoughts of liberating all slaves in Virginia. Starting with only seven men, his band reached no more than about 80 before the rebellion ended. A general slave uprising, which Turner seems to have desired, never materialized. In fact, he was opposed in the last battle of the uprising at the Blunt farm by both slave holders and their slaves.
Turner's vision for liberation seems excessively male centered, even in its day of general male supremacy. He took no women with him during his roaming rebellion (nor children, for that matter). However much Turner thought of himself as a modern Moses, his great apotheosis resembled more a spasm than an Exodus. If his objective was publicity, as he indicated to his trial judge, then the rebellion’s non-inclusive nature was correct. If not, it is a puzzle.
Righteous vengeance based on divine justice was strong in Turner's vision. For the short time his group was active, they killed or wounded almost every white person whom they encountered, except for a poverty-stricken family whom the state’s governor declared “was so wretched as to be in all respects on a par” with the slaves. Even acknowledging the brutality of the insurrection, it is probably unfair to characterize his vision as blood-lust. It is true that Turner gave orders to spare no one, but his words indicate the slaughter would be relieved when the rebels grew numerous and powerful enough to sustain themselves in open battle. This eventuality never came to be, however, and the rebellion was put down by a contingent of 3,000 Virginia militia. The rebellion was put down so soon (less than four days) in large part because the rebel slaves had no military discipline, nor had Turner given them a vision of a future beyond the rebellion itself. The rebellion was, as Turner finally admitted, not a means to an end. It was actually the objective itself.
Critique of the Turner’s leadership model
Turner's insurrection “caused hysteria among southern whites, prompting the vengeful killing of many innocent slaves and leading to the enactment of stricter slave codes.”.
Paradoxically, southern cries for emancipation increased in the short term after the rebellion—not from moral concerns but practical ones. Turner’s attempt had succeeded, in whites’ eyes, far beyond other slave mutinies. “It was feared that there was a perpetual and potential Nat Turner in every slave cabin” and that slave rebellions would occur regularly with ever-greater violence. Whites realized slavery could not continue when slaves in large numbers would risk death for freedom. About a year after Turner’s rebellion, the Virginia legislature narrowly defeated by a vote of 67-60 a bill to emancipate all slaves in Virginia. The motive of the bill was to save white lives by ending slavery and gradually returning the freed slaves to Africa. The measure failed less because of hard-hearted adherence to slavery than because it was economically and financially impossible.
Despite movement for pragmatic emancipation, Turner’s insurrection made life even more difficult for slaves. Within a short time after the rebellion, self-appointed white avengers had killed more than 100 slave and free blacks in and around Southampton County. A series of slave laws, known as the Black Codes, were enacted all over the south. The long-standing but widely ignored prohibitions against teaching slaves to read and write were enforced by the states and willingly adhered to by whites. Activities of slave preachers were sharply curtailed and the ability of blacks to assemble even for innocent reasons shrank dramatically. White churches were required by law to instruct slaves in their holy duty to obey their masters.
Yet the insurrection “did exactly what Turner aimed for it to do. The eyes of the whole world were focused” on American slavery. Moreover, it emboldened other slaves to individual acts of liberation and kept alive northern abolitionism like nothing else could have done. “The immediate aftermath of the insurrection was [repressive] reaction, though the eventual result was liberation.”
Turner must have surely known that his rebellion would end in failure and the deaths of its participants. He was a leader precisely because his vision extended beyond that of the led. Yet he never confided to his followers what their ultimate fate would be. In large part, Turner manipulated his followers into dying for a goal they could never attain. Turner sacrificed them for a cause. However worthy the cause was, he deliberately caused their deaths (and his own) to achieve it. Yet I have difficulty excoriating Turner for this. His followers surely understood the risk, and still joined him. Perhaps one the qualities of leadership out of oppression is concealing from the oppressed foreseen trials en route to freedom . After all, Moses’ seems not have revealed all he envisioned, either.
Bibliography
Brown, Peter Rodgers. The Theology of Nat Turner as Reflected in the Insurrection. Master thesis, Oberlin Graduate School of Theology, 1949.
Gray, Thomas R. The Confessions of Nat Turner. Text of 1888, prepared for “The American Revolution–an HTML Project,” http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1826‑1850/slavery/confesxx.htm
Lewis, Ronald L. “Nat Turner.” Collier Multimedia Encyclopedia (CD-ROM), 1996.
Mitchell, James Nathaniel. Nat Turner: Slave, Preacher, Prophet and Messiah. Doctoral thesis, Vanderbilt Divinity School, 1975.
[1]
One effect of the widespread belief that Turner was a certified preacher was the enactment of laws to restrict the activities of all black preachers, whom whites assumed knew of and encouraged Turner’s rebellion.
[2]
Brown calls Turner’s native religion “voodooism,” but he is mistaken. Voodoo is a syncretism of Spanish Catholicism, African spiritism and Caribbean Indian religions, found in Haiti and other Caribbean islands. Voodoo is not known in Africa.