A RE-READING OF THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER AND THE FIRES OF JUBILEE

(sigh)

For those of you unfamiliar with William Styron's 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Stephen Oates' The Fires of Jubilee, which is an in-depth treatment of the slave revolt led by Turner in 1831 in Jerusalem (now Courtland), Virginia, I suggest you include them in your summer reading. I read these books 25 years ago and have just re-read them. They fascinate me.

Nat Turner was a slave in Southampton County, Virginia, and was also a self-appointed preacher of sorts. The slave rebellion he led in 1831 resulted in the deaths of 55 whites, both young and old, and resulted in Turner's execution by hanging. There is, in fact, still a street in Courtland called Hanging Tree Road.

The implications of what prompted the 1831 revolt and subsequent massacre are fodder for a plethora of discussions about slavery itself, man's inhumanity to man, ad infinitum. Whites and blacks have both praised and berated Styron's novel, which is inherently a true story but told in the first person of Turner himself. Some see Styron's treatment of the incident as racist; others see it as visionary. Whatever your personal take on the events, it will undoubtedly be based on your own life experiences and prejudices. Each of us will read something different into Styron's account.

Oates' The Fires of Jubilee is a biography of Turner and includes maps and itineraries of the massacre itself. Twenty-five years ago my family and I retraced the steps of that horrible night in 1831 and were amazed at the distance covered by Turner and the others in those few hours. We did this in the summer and languished in the heat and humidity of Southampton County, just as Turner must have. This was a harrowing event and not something the good folks of that area talk about freely, even today. It's history though, and we all should read these two books and form our own opinions.

(sigh)