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My grandmother, who was very religious, and to whom I was much attached - my master, who belonged to

the church, and other religious persons who visited the house, and whom I often saw at prayers, noticing

the singularity of my manners, I suppose, and my uncommon intelligence for a child, remarked I had too

much sense to be raised - and if I was, I would never be of any service to any one - as a slave . . .

 

 

Nathaniel Turner 

Christian Martyrdom in Southampton

A Theology of Black Liberation

By Rudolph Lewis

 

Table of Contents

Overview

1831 Confessions 

Biblical Scholars & Theologians (brief critiques)

For Lucy Barrow, Revolutionary (poem)

Grant Creates Nat Turner Rebellion Tour (4 August 2010)

Isaac in Heaven (creative essay)

Killing Fiends & Monsters--for Will Francis (poem)

Nathaniel Turner Sermon (poem)

Nathaniel Turner, the Bible & Sword (conference paper)

Nathaniel of Southampton or Balaam’s Ass (creative essay)

Nathaniel Turner TimeLine (critical outline)

Sonnets in Memory of Nathaniel Turner

The Uncertain Identity of Nathaniel Turner (conference paper)

Section 1 The Mythic World of Nathaniel Turner

Chapter 1 -- Scholarship, Sacred Documents, Folklore

Chapter 2 --  Holy Man, Hoax, or Fiend 

Chapter 3 -- Confessions and Turner Folklore  

Chapter 4 --  The Social World of Cross Keys 

Chapter 5 -- The Bible and Biblical Typology

Section 2  Coming to Grips with Injustice and Corruption

Chapter 6 -- A Mother's Prophecy

Chapter 7 -- Elders Interview Miracle Child 

Chapter 8 -- Growing into Spiritual Manhood 

Chapter 9 -- Methodist Promise of Freedom 

Chapter 10 -- The Revelations Begin 1817 

Chapter 11 -- The Holy Spirit in the Wilderness

Chapter 12 -- Satan’s Advancing Kingdom 1821

Chapter 13 --  On Auction Block Trusting in the Lord 1823

Section 3 On the Gospel Highway: The Visions Begin—1825

Chapter 14 -- Christian Salvation in Cross Keys

Chapter 15 -- Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, Higher

Chapter 16 -- Turner’s Message-Watch & Pray 1825 

Chapter 17 -- Transfiguration of Holy Spirit 

Chapter 18 -- A Eucharist: Blood on the Corn 

Chapter 19 -- The Gift of Healing & Apostleship

Chapter 20 -- Make Way for the Lord—1828 

Chapter 21 -- Laying Down the Yoke Of Salvation

Section 4 Trouble Coming Down the Road

Chapter 22 -- Wrestling with Spiritual Wickedness 

Chapter 23 -- Prophet & Apocalypse Now  

Chapter 24 -- Leadership & Other Values

Chapter 25 -- Ranking Sacrifices: Turner & Brown 

Chapter 26 -- What Price Salvation—Murder & Mayhem?

Section 5 Blood on the Cross

Chapter 27 -- Insurrection or Holy War? 

Chapter 28 -- Garden of Gethsemane: Escape or Martyrdom?  

Chapter 29 -- Bearing the Cross to Jerusalem

Chapter 30 -- Desecration & Demystification

Chapter 31 -- A Defeat Sweeter than Victory

Sources Consulted 

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Related files

The Confession of Bacchus Hammet   

The Confession of John Enslow 

Confessions of Walter Cotton

For Walter Cotton, Outlaw

Hatcher's  Skull

Hatchers Skull Letter  

Hatcher Hampered By Post Tribune    

History and Memory Table   

Insurrection Of The Blacks   -- Sept. 3 1831  Sept. 10, 1831  Sept 17, 1831

Introduction to Denmark Vesey  

Memory Slipping Away-- Donna Britt article

Nat Turner in History's Multiple Mirrors 

Nathaniel Turner Page  

Nat Turner Troublesome Property2  

Rebellion in History and Memory 

Richard Hatcher's Plan Letter to Editor

Troublesome Property Reviews  

The Trouble With Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property 

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Nathaniel Turner

Christian Martyrdom in Southampton 

A Theology of Black Liberation

By Rudolph Lewis

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Nathaniel Turner TimeLine  / 1831 Confessions     /  Sonnets in Memory of Nathaniel Turner (Rudolph Lewis)

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Nathaniel Turner: Christian Martyrdom in Southampton: A Theology of Black Liberation (Rudolph Lewis)

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Nat Turner in History's Multiple Mirrors  (Felecia R. Lee, NYTimes)  /  Hatcher Plans to Exhibit Turner Skull

 

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Insurrection Of The Blacks Niles’ Register  Sept. 3 1831  Sept. 10, 1831  Sept 17, 1831

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Dear Mr. Lewis,  I'm writing for a friend who is currently in possession of a very old postcard picturing 3 very well dressed black men who, unfortunately, have been hung. Doing research on Ida B. Well-Barnett I've found a story on three such men in Memphis on the date March 9, 1892. Handwritten in ink on the card is a date that seems to be 9/9/1892 but because of the age of the card the first 9 is a little intelligible. Is it possible that this incident could have been made a post card? I've never encountered anything quite like this before. Frank (4 May 2007)

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Strange Fruit Anniversary of a Lynching

August 7, 2010

Eighty years ago, two young African-American men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, were lynched in the town center of Marion, Indiana. . . .  Local photographer Lawrence Beitler took what would become the most iconic photograph of lynching in America. The photograph shows two bodies hanging from a tree surrounded by a crowd of ordinary citizens, including women and children. Thousands of copies were made and sold. The photograph helped inspire the poem and song Strange Fruit written by Abel Meeropol—and performed around the world by Billie Holiday.

But there was a third person, 16-year-old James Cameron, who narrowly survived the lynching.

"After 15 or 20 minutes of having their pictures taken and everything, they came back to get me. . .  And I looked over to the faces of the people as they were beating me along the way to the tree. I was pleading for some kind of mercy, looking for a kind face. But I could find none. . . . And that's when I prayed to God. I said, 'Lord have mercy, forgive me my sins.' I was ready to die." NPR    NPR Transcript

 

Strange Fruit Lynching Report

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Basil Davidson's  "Africa Series"

 Different But Equal  /  Mastering A Continent  /  Caravans of Gold  / The King and the City / The Bible and The Gun

West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850

By Basil Davidson

African Slave Trade: Precolonial History, 1450-1850

By Basil Davidson

John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk

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Sonnets in Memory of Nathaniel Turner 

Poet & Prophet of Southampton

By Rudolph Lewis

Nathaniel Turner TimeLine   1831 Confessions   Nathaniel of Southampton or Balaam’s Ass  / Grant Creates Nat Turner Tour  / Sonnets for Larry Neal

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AALBC.com's 25 Best Selling Books


 

Fiction

#1 - Justify My Thug by Wahida Clark
#2 - Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree
#3 - Head Bangers: An APF Sexcapade by Zane
#4 - Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper
#5 - Stackin' Paper 2 Genesis' Payback by Joy King
#6 - Thug Lovin' (Thug 4) by Wahida Clark
#7 - When I Get Where I'm Going by Cheryl Robinson
#8 - Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby
#9 - The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane

#10 - Covenant: A Thriller  by Brandon Massey

#11 - Diary Of A Street Diva  by Ashley and JaQuavis

#12 - Don't Ever Tell  by Brandon Massey

#13 - For colored girls who have considered suicide  by Ntozake Shange

#14 - For the Love of Money : A Novel by Omar Tyree

#15 - Homemade Loves  by J. California Cooper

#16 - The Future Has a Past: Stories by J. California Cooper

#17 - Player Haters by Carl Weber

#18 - Purple Panties: An Eroticanoir.com Anthology by Sidney Molare

#19 - Stackin' Paper by Joy King

#20 - Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery by Kwei Quartey

#21 - The Upper Room by Mary Monroe

#22 – Thug Matrimony  by Wahida Clark

#23 - Thugs And The Women Who Love Them by Wahida Clark

#24 - Married Men by Carl Weber

#25 - I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang by Leonce Gaiter

Non-fiction

#1 - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
#2 - Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans
#3 - Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by Zane
#4 - Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper
#5 - Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through by Iyanla Vanzant
#6 - Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey
#7 - The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish by Freda DeKnight
#8 - The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing
#9 - The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson

#10 - John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History  by Ahati N. N. Toure

#11 - Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure by Tavis Smiley

#12 -The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

#13 - The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life by Kevin Powell

#14 - The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

#15 - Why Men Fear Marriage: The Surprising Truth Behind Why So Many Men Can't Commit  by RM Johnson

#16 - Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins

#17 - Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell

#18 - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

#19 - John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard

#20 - Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher by Leonard Harris

#21 - Age Ain't Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife by Carleen Brice

#22 - 2012 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino
#23 - Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul by Tom Lagana
#24 - 101 Things Every Boy/Young Man of Color Should Know by LaMarr Darnell Shields

#25 - Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class  by Lisa B. Thompson

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From Civil Rights to Human Rights

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice

By Thomas F. Jackson

King's early leadership reached beyond southern desegregation and voting rights. As the freedom movement of the 1950s and early 1960s confronted poverty and economic reprisals, King championed trade union rights, equal job opportunities, metropolitan integration, and full employment. When the civil rights and antipoverty policies of the Johnson administration failed to deliver on the movement's goals of economic freedom for all, King demanded that the federal government guarantee jobs, income, and local power for poor people. When the Vietnam War stalled domestic liberalism, King called on the nation to abandon imperialism and become a global force for multiracial democracy and economic justice. Drawing widely on published and unpublished archival sources, Jackson explains the contexts and meanings of King's increasingly open call for "a radical redistribution of political and economic power" in American cities, the nation, and the world. The mid-1960s ghetto uprisings were in fact revolts against unemployment, powerlessness, police violence, and institutionalized racism, King argued. His final dream, a Poor People's March on Washington, aimed to mobilize Americans across racial and class lines to reverse a national cycle of urban conflict, political backlash, and policy retrenchment. King's vision of economic democracy and international human rights remains a powerful inspiration for those committed to ending racism and poverty in our time.

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Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (2009)

By David Waldstreicher

Taking on decades of received wisdom, David Waldstreicher has written the first book to recognize slavery’s place at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. Famously, the Constitution never mentions slavery. And yet, of its eighty-four clauses, six were directly concerned with slaves and the interests of their owners. Five other clauses had implications for slavery that were considered and debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the citizens of the states during ratification. This “peculiar institution” was not a moral blind spot for America’s otherwise enlightened framers, nor was it the expression of a mere economic interest. Slavery was as important to the making of the Constitution as the Constitution was to the survival of slavery.By tracing slavery from before the revolution, through the Constitution’s framing, and into the public debate that followed, Waldstreicher rigorously shows that slavery was not only actively discussed behind the closed and locked doors of the Constitutional Convention, but that it was also deftly woven into the Constitution itself.

For one thing, slavery was central to the American economy, and since the document set the stage for a national economy, the Constitution could not avoid having implications for slavery. Even more, since the government defined sovereignty over individuals, as well as property in them, discussion of sovereignty led directly to debate over slavery’s place in the new republic. Finding meaning in silences that have long been ignored, Slavery’s Constitution is a vital and sorely needed contribution to the conversation about the origins, impact, and meaning of our nation’s founding document.

*   *   *   *   *

Midnight Rising

John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War

By Tony Horwitz

Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict. Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfil Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale."

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The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

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Ancient African Nations

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Negro Digest / Black World

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Enjoy!

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  Only a Pawn in Their Game

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery / George Jackson  / Hurricane Carter

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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg

The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804  / January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of Haiti 

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