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The Rebellious Slave
Nat Turner in American Memory
By Scot French
Overview
How did the bloodiest slave uprising in
American history—once thought to have involved hundreds
of conspirators, black and white, free and enslaved—come to be known simply as "Nat
Turner's Rebellion"? And why does the enigmatic figure of
the rebellious slave resonate so powerfully across American
history?
In this richly detailed study spanning the eras of slavery, Jim
Crow, and civil rights, Scot French places the contested history
and enduring memory of Nat Turner’s Rebellion within the
broader context of the black freedom struggle. French builds his
narrative around close readings of historical texts, both famous
and obscure, from early American prophecies of slave rebellion
to William Styron's 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about
Turner.
He devotes considerable attention to the
interplay between quasi-official narratives, such as "The
Confessions of Nat Turner" by Thomas R. Gray, and less
authoritative sources, such as rumor and oral tradition. Whereas
most historians accept "The Confessions" as gospel,
French presents several compelling counternarratives that point
to a wider conspiracy. A groundbreaking work of American
history, analogous to Merrill D. Peterson’s Abraham Lincoln
in American Memory and Nell Painter’s Sojourner Truth:
A Life, a Symbol, The Rebellious Slave will alter our
views of both slavery and its complex, ever-changing legacy.
“Nat Turner was neither the first nor the last American slave
to rise in arms against his oppressors,” French writes. “Yet
he stands alone in American culture as the epitome of the
rebellious slave, a black man whose words and deeds challenged
the white slaveholding South and awakened a slumbering nation. A
maker of history in his own day, Turner has been made to serve
the most pressing needs of every generation since. In
remembering Nat Turner, Americans must boldly confront--or
deftly evade, at their peril--the intertwined legacies of
slavery and racism in a nation founded on revolutionary ideals
of freedom and equality.” Source: Houghton Mifflin (Spring 2004)
www.scotfrench.com
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Scot French (b. May
29, 1959) is a native of Boylston, Massachusetts. He and his
family live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he teaches
History and African American Studies at the University of
Virginia.
He received his B.A. in
American Literature and Magazine Journalism from Syracuse
University, where he served as editor-in-chief of The Daily
Orangestudent newspaper from 1979-80. After a brief stint as a
freelance writer, he embarked on an eight-year career as a
reporter, editor, and columnist for several New England
newspapers -- the Peterborough, N.H.-based Monadnock Ledger;
the Manchester, Conn.-based Herald and Journal-Inquirer,
and the Concord (N.H.0 Monitor. |
During his years as an
editor and reporter in New Hampshire, he covered three
first-in-the-nation presidential primary campaigns (1980, 1984
and 1988) as well as the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster.
He received several journalism awards, including one for depth
reporting from the Society of professional Journalists/Sigma
Delta Chi (SPJ/SDX) and one for editorial writing from the New
England Press Association (NEPA).
French enrolled in the
graduate history program at the University of Virginia in
September 1988. There he studied under the direction of Waldo E.
Martin Jr. (The Mind of Frederick Douglass) and later, as
a doctoral candidate, with Edward L. Ayers (The Promise of
The New South: Life After Reconstruction). In 1993, French
and Ayers co-authored an article - "The Strange Career of
Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory,
1943-1993" - for a volume of essays (Jeffersonian
Legacies, ed. Peter S. Onuf) marking the 250th
anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth. A one-year dissertation
fellowship from the Southern History Program and a two-year
predoctoral fellowship from The Carter G. Woodson Institute for
African-American and African Studies at U.Va. provided French
with crucial support during the research and writing of his
doctoral dissertation. He received his Ph.D. from the Corcoran
Department of History in May 2000.
French is an assistant
professor and associate director of
The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and
African Studies, where his teaching portfolio
includes courses in Southern History, African American History,
and African American Studies. He recently traveled to Havana,
Cuba, as part of a Ford Foundation-funded program exploring the
construction of racial identities in Africa and the Atlantic
World.
French is married to
Christine Madrid French, an architectural
historian and preservation activist. Their first child, Gideon,
was born in 2001.
The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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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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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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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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update 4
December 2011
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