THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9409280165
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Guest Column
SOURCE: BY REV. AARON L. DOBYNES
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
On Saturday, dozens will gather at 3 p.m. at Main Street Baptist Church, Smithfield, to exercise their inherent right as citizens of America to be free to choose.
With a keynote address by the Rev. Dr. Ralph Reavis, noted scholar and professor of church history, this inaugural commemoration of an annual ``Nat Turner Day'' will mark a significant step toward exercising one's right to select one's own hero. Inhabitants of the ``land of the free, home of the brave'' often are bigoted in their willingness to tolerate divergent thinking, especially in cases that juxtapose a populous majority against a deemed subserviant minority. In such instances, recorded history is neither kind nor fair. Moreover, reporting of the facts is often distorted and the commentary skewed.
The case of Nat Turner, a 19th century Baptist preacher from nearby Southampton County, is one which, for over 163 years, has stirred deep feelings in those who hear of the story. Even to this day, just the mention of his name elicits an eerie hush over a crowd.
Having lived and pastored in Southampton for four years, I was brought eye-level with some painful realities. Today, some 137 years since the Dred Scott decision proclaimed that the life of a black person is only three-fifths as valuable as that of his white counterpart, some people still are governed in their thoughts and deeds by this claim. The Rev. Turner's ``Insurrection'' in August of 1831, which is considered by many as infamous, reportedly caused the deaths of 57 white people of the Courtland area and is upheld as a crazed, senseless murder-spree spearheaded by some lunatic. Nat Turner, conversely, is a hero!
Faced with the hideous atrocities enslaving himself and his people, Nat Turner decided to take a stand! He was no glorified ``happy camper'' product of the deified portrayal of slaves in movie versions such as ``Gone With the Wind.'' His very life was the true saga of living as a slave.
Men and women were stripped of their families - babies taken from mothers, fathers prohibited from caring for and nurturing their namesakes; rape and pilage of both men and women was a commonplace occurrence by masters to their slaves. The beatings and other tactics of torture and dehumanization that were accepted and encouraged ways of life pushed Nat Turner into action.
Historians chronicle the wrestlings the Rev. Turner had with the signs and visions he received that bade him to take a stand. It is even mentioned that his ``Gethsemane'' experience did not result in the leadership cup being passed from him. The reality of being human, yet being treated worse than many animals by fellow human beings, caused an ire so deep that only an action of great magnitude could or would make a difference.
Fifty-five years earlier, Crispus Attucks had his blood spilled in Boston to say jointly to the British, ``Let my people go!'' He is a hero. Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate military forces that seceded from the Union in a war against his own countrymen, comes to mind. By all accounts, Lee's move was an act of treason against the very nation that proclaimed and won freedom from the tyranny of dictatorship. Thousands died during this bloody insurrection. However, to those who choose so, Gen. Lee is a hero.
While some may argue the plan of action of Turner's stand against slavery, certainly all who believe ``all men are created equal'' must support his right to pursuit of the same. So real is the belief that the life of a black person is less than a white person's, there is no direct accounting for the number of black persons killed in the retaliatory period after the insurrection, though there is an exact accounting for 57 whites killed.
Little is known either of the ``rumored'' existence of leather products - lamp shades, wallets and other things - fashioned with the human skin of black persons killed after the insurrection and passed down to descendants of whites killed during the raid as family heirlooms. In Courtland, even in 1994, the name ``Blackhead Signpost Road'' is attached to the throughway that saw the heads of decapitated blacks lined out as gruesome reminders to the slaves who remained. In assessment, it must be asked, who is really crazy?
While I cannot support all choices that are made as heroes, I must defend an individual's right to choose. Likewise, I will demand the same courtesy. Nat Turner, in comparison, was no Ted Bundy or Son of Sam or Jeffrey Dahmer, whose serial-type psychological make-up showed demonic tendencies. Rather, he was a man who, after having been totally stripped of every ounce of his dignity, said, ``Enough is enough!'' He took a stand. He made a difference.
Nat Turner is a hero. Yes, he is my hero. The ceremony marking this occasion, his right to passage, is long overdue! by CNB