THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409210104
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Reading a Sept. 15 Sun article, I could not help but feel rage. The Southampton County Historical Society, in very poor taste, attempted to address the issue of the great slave insurrection in Southampton County, led by my relative, the Rev. Nat Turner.
Kitty Futrell, who co-produced and directed the videotape of Nat's rebellion, made a statement that my family found repugnant. She stated, ``She was a savage, right out of Africa. She tried to kill the baby, determined he would not live as a slave.''
Kitty was referring to Nancy Turner; the baby was Nat. I cannot speak for Nancy Turner's actions, but I can assure anyone that death was a hell of a lot better than being enslaved. Does Ms. Futrell think being a slave was a great honor?
Let us take a moment and see who was the real savage. The slave women were raped and bore the bastards of the white men. We were stripped of our culture and languages. Thousands of slaves were sold on the auction blocks like cattle. Millions of human cargo were stuffed in the bellies of the slave ships and died crossing the middle passage and dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.
Who is the savage? I think one can get the picture and see who the real savage was.
Being of African, German/Jewish and Native American descent, I am very proud of my multi-cultural background, and it is very sad to think that there are some who are still stuck in some sort of time zone. My family and the African-American community demand a public retraction of this repugnant statement.
As the great African-American author and poet, Maya Angelou, wrote in ``All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes:''
``Despite the murders, rapes and suicides, we had survived. The middle passage and the auction block had not erased us. Not humiliations nor lynchings, individual cruelties nor collective oppression had been able to eradicate us from the earth. We had come through despite our own ignorance and gullibility, and the ignorance and rapacious greed of our assailants.''
Andre L. Williams
Franklin by CNB