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.Only two paths appeared to stretch before thoseseeking liberty and equality for black Americans: to fighthate and injustice with violence or to oppose racism withmoral arguments and determined nonviolence.One way oranother, people eventually had to make a choice.In this way, long after his demise, Turner s specter hauntedthe disputes between influential blacks.Booker T.Washingtonand W.E.B.Du Bois were prime examples as they arguedover the best way to achieve black advancement.Like all civilrights leaders, then or since, Washington and Du Bois hadat their disposal sharply contrasting means to the same end.Washington, for example, promoted a form of black achieve-ment that purposefully avoided creating fear and suspicionamong America s whites.Washington s calls for accommodationcomforted white people because of their emphasis on quiet,peaceful, and productive racial coexistence; his proposalscarried not the slightest hint of aggression.On the contrary, Du Bois demanded a full and equalshare of the American promise for the nation s black citizens.Du Bois openly and forcefully challenged institutionalizedracial discrimination and run-of-the-mill racial hatred.Hewelcomed confrontation; white anxiety was not a concern forhim.At one point, Du Bois went so far as to urge blackAmericans to arm themselves if threatened.In stark, Turner-like terms, Du Bois asked rhetorically, What can America doagainst a mass of people who.stand as one unshaken groupin battle? Nothing. Later, in the mid-twentieth century, Malcolm X and MartinLuther King, Jr., took up where Du Bois and Washington leftoff arguing the merits and demerits of confrontation if notoutright violence in the cause of black liberty.Nat Turner CH.BAA.NTu.C10.Final.q 8/10/04 8:10 AM Page 8484NAT TURNERhovered over civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s,shaping the decisions not only of Malcolm X and Dr.King butof an entire generation of prominent black spokesmen, fromStokely Carmichael and Huey Newton to Jesse Jackson andAndrew Young.The debate was always the same: lash out,meeting violence with violence as Turner had done, and facewhatever consequences, or renounce physical force in favor ofpeaceful yet determined political and social action?Malcolm X initially chose the former route, promising tocombat white oppression by whatever means necessary. His warning to white racists was loud and unequivocal heassured his enemies that he would only be nonviolent withthose who are nonviolent with me. As for others, he made itclear: If someone puts a hand on you, send him to the cemetery. A famous photograph of Malcolm X brandishing an auto-matic rifle in self-defense drove home his point.In much the same way, Huey Newton and his Black PantherParty opted for a Nat Turner like response.Based in Oakland,California, the Black Panthers urged members and non-members alike to take up the gun in defiance of white power.Newton and his followers proved how serious they were when,in 1967, they traveled to Sacramento, California s capital, fullyarmed.As Newton explained it, the plan was simple We regoing to take the best Panthers we got and we re going to theCapitol steps with our guns.We ve got to get a message overto the people. Once they had the attention of the media,Newton s contingent brazenly disrupted government operationsby bringing shotguns and rifles into the state assembly, makingthe point that black Americans never again would suffer theindignities of racism quietly.Martin Luther King, Jr., wanted nothing to do with modern-day Nat Turners such as Huey Newton.King was convincedthat violence bred only more violence, and, in the end, itresulted only in more pain and suffering.King also knew thatwhite violence often was aided and abetted by the power of CH.BAA.NTu.C10.Final.q 8/10/04 8:10 AM Page 8585Nat Turner s LegacyBlack leaders throughout history have debated Turner slegacy, arguing the merits of fighting violence with violenceversus taking strong yet peaceful action.But no matter whattheir opinion, leaders from Frederick Douglass, seen here, toMalcolm X have been influenced by Turner s spirit and strengthin his quest for freedom.governments securely controlled by whites.Violence in thecause of civil rights would amount only to a ready-madeexcuse for white America to reject black demands and lashout in vengeance. CH.BAA.NTu.C10.Final.q 8/10/04 8:10 AM Page 8686NAT TURNERThroughout his life, King steadfastly refused to tolerateanything that even remotely resembled the tactics of NatTurner.He once commented on the futility of any kind ofmob action, no matter how well intentioned: There is some-thing painfully sad about a riot.One sees youngsters andangry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly againstimpossible odds.Deep down within them you perceive a desirefor self-destruction, a suicidal longing. Turner s mission hadfailed, and his cause died with him on the gallows.King wasdetermined to build a movement that would succeed and, ifneed be, outlast its architect.The questions sparked by Nat Turner s rebellion still echo,and the debate about how to achieve equality continues.TheLos Angeles riots of the 1990s, as well as simmering grievancesamong urban blacks in cities throughout the nation whichoccasionally result in violence seem to show Turner s lastinginfluence.Yet blacks gains in politics and business, not tomention many other areas of American society and culture,argue strongly against crude tools such as urban uprisingsand in favor of incremental but lasting advances througheducation, legal action, and political activism.The shadow of Nat Turner will continue to hang overthe American racial debate.Turner will stay with us, if for noother purpose than to serve as an example of what happenswhen desperate people resort to desperate measures in thecause of freedom. CH.BAA.NTu.zBM.Final.q 8/10/04 8:11 AM Page 8787CHRONOLOGY1800 Born in Southampton County, Virginia1821 Runs away from, but returns to, Samuel Turner s estate;marries Cherry1822 Sold to Thomas Moore and is forced to live apart fromhis family1825 Becomes a self-ordained preacher1828 Begins to recruit men for a slave rebellion1831 August 22 Slave rebellion beginsOctober 30 Turner capturedNovember 1 Confessions recorded by Thomas GrayNovember 5 Put on trialNovember 11 Found guilty and is hanged in Jerusalem,Virginia CH.BAA.NTu.zBM.Final.q 8/10/04 8:11 AM Page 8888FURTHER READINGAptheker, Herbert.Afro-American History: The Modern Era.New York: Citadel, Press, 1971. .Nat Turner s Slave Rebellion.New York: Humanities Press,1966.Bennett, Lerone, Jr.Before the Mayflower.New York: Penguin, 1984.Clarke, John Henrik, ed.William Styron s Nat Turner: Ten BlackWriters Respond.Boston: Greenwood, 1968.Drewry, William Sydney.The Southampton Insurrection.Washington,D.C.: Johnson, 1900.Harding, Vincent.There Is a River.New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1981.Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, et al.Africans in America: America sJourney through Slavery.New York: Harcourt Brace and Company,1998.Oates, Stephen B.The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner s Fierce Rebellion.New York: New American Library, 1975.Owens, Leslie Howard.This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culturein the Old South.New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.Parker, William N., ed.The Structure of the Cotton Economy of theAntebellum South.Washington, D.C.: The Agricultural HistorySociety, 1970.Rogers, J.A.World s Great Men of Color.New York: Macmillan,1972.Rollins, Charlemae Hill.They Showed the Way.New York: ThomasY.Crowell, 1964.Tragle, Henry Irving, ed.The Southampton Slave Revolt of EighteenThirty-One.Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1971.Wright, Donald R [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]