THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 4, 1995 TAG: 9509040029
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERRI WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY LENGTH: Long : 152 lines
In 1970, 20th Century Fox Film Corp. brought its big bucks to the sprawling farms here to make an ambitious movie documenting the life of Nat Turner.
But that dream - and $4.5 million for a film about the legendary slave who led an 1831 rebellion in which about 60 whites were killed - went up in flames. Fox officials blamed budget constraints, but news accounts said blacks in the community resented the film's depiction of Turner, even if James Earl Jones did have the starring role.
Now, with a much smaller budget and actors and actresses including descendants of Turner and his white victims, local film director and businessman Stanley E. Squire Holcomb, 74, is producing a commercial videotape, ``Nat Turner: The Burning Spirit.'' And again there's opposition.
During eight weeks of filming, some of the white actors, actresses and Holcomb say they have encountered death threats, harassment and plain resentment from the community.
Holcomb, who says he's gotten anonymous calls threatening that ``I'd never come out of the state alive,'' said the set is often interrupted by honking cars and people shouting epithets.
Most resentment comes from older residents who ``think that the blacks should still be slaves,'' he said. ``They say, `We've got the niggers where we want them, and you're going to stir them up. They're going to cause trouble.' ''
Sharon Jansky, a white stand-in, is perplexed by the opposition. ``This is just a little low-budget movie,'' she said, shaking her head. Holcomb won't disclose the cost of his private venture.
Jansky, who moved from York, Pa., to work as a nurse in Suffolk, said some of her Wakefield neighbors are unhappy that she and roommate Patty School are involved. ``They'll say, `You weren't massacred by Nat Turner, you don't know how it feels. You transported northerner, we're going to put you back where you belong,' '' Jansky recalled.
Holcomb hopes to have his video docudrama in video stores in December. The script, based on 10 to 15 books on Turner, was written by Leo Fong, a Los Angeles area writer and United Methodist minister, for $1,500 - ``a labor of love for a friend,'' Fong said.
The production involves about 100 local amateurs, including ministers, utility workers and Tony Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from the Wall Street Journal who also is writing a book on Turner. All were recruited by Holcomb, who knocked on doors.
The Nat Turner story long has been a topic of contention in Southampton County, a 600-square-mile area west of Suffolk and at the border of North Carolina. Much of the argument centers on whether Turner was a mistreated slave whose actions were justified or a rampaging criminal.
Holcomb said the Southampton County Board of Supervisors and the Southampton Historical Society have been uncooperative, insisting that the film would be divisive.
County records show no board vote against use of the courthouse, and officials there said they weren't informed of Holcomb's plans. They said the building is being renovated and couldn't be used for the film anyway.
But Supervisors Chairman A.M. Felts said he doesn't favor the project. ``I told him there were more positive things that could be done,'' Felts said. He declined to elaborate.
As for the historical society, Lynda Updike and Kitty Futrell would not comment on Holcomb's project. ``I've not helped him in his cause because I'm not interested in it,'' Futrell said.
The society spent years to produce its own video, ``The Nat Turner Insurrection - 1831,'' a four-hour compilation that's provided to libraries and other educational institutions.
Holcomb said he's pushing on, using his house and private land in Southampton and Sussex counties. ``This is a story that must be told.''
He admits that ``greed,'' not just history, is driving him. He hopes to sell one million of the tapes, targeting black consumers and video stores.
In some ways, it's ironic that Holcomb's dream would encompass a piece on a slave rebel who grew up in the same county.
His Waverly plantation house, in neighboring Sussex County, is a hybrid of ``Bonanza's'' Ponderosa and ``Gone With the Wind's'' Tara. Heavy, pastel-blue drapes decorate the windows, ornate rugs cover dark, wood floors, and there are what once were slave quarters at the rear of the house.
Holcomb - who regularly sports faded jeans, cowboy boots and has a Ross Perot-ish high-pitched twang - has played the part of racist both as an actor and, by his own acknowledgment, in real life.
In the 1930s, when Holcomb was growing up in the tiny town of Ivor in Southampton County, blacks were regularly mistreated and often earned less money for similar jobs done by whites, he said.
``When I was a kid,'' he said, ``all you had to say was, `A black man did it,' and he was convicted. You could have had 50 people testifying for him, but it wouldn't make a difference.''
When Joe Louis boxed white opponents, Holcomb and his friends used derogatory words to refer to the ``Brown Bomber.''
``I was a kid, and I didn't know any better, and I agreed with them,'' said Holcomb. ``But today, there's no reason why people shouldn't know better. . . necessarily believed.''
His views broadened through travels around the country.
He served in the Army, then bought and sold various businesses. He also dabbled in entertainment, getting bit parts in miniseries and portraying a racist plantation owner in the little-known film ``Weapons of Choice.''
In Orlando, Fla., he started a real estate, construction and utility business. A restaurant followed. He later moved to Oregon, where he started a lamp-manufacturing business, which he sold, then moved back to Virginia. Then it was a Bedford County saw mill parts business, which he later sold to Jim Burruss.
Burruss, who said he knew of his friend's dream to develop the Nat Turner video, said Holcomb's business acumen will see the project through: ``He's quite the entrepreneur.''
Profits have little to do with most of the amateurs in the project. The descendants of Turner and the whites he killed said the project has helped to heal old wounds, and they constantly joke between takes.
Wilbur Cornett, a service manager for an equipment company, his wife Pamela and their two children say the project has helped them learn more about the ills of racism. The Cornetts play slaveowners in the video.
Pamela Cornett's great-great-great grandfather, Nathaniel Francis, survived the massacre. Francis was not at his house when Turner and his band came and killed Francis' overseer. Nathaniel Francis' wife, Lavinia, was saved by her slaves, who concealed her in an attic.
For Danita Turner, a nurse's aide, and brother Edward, 19, a college student, the project helps them appreciate the sacrifices of their forefathers. Danita Turner, who portrays a slave woman, said she didn't experience much racism while growing up in Waverly, but whites sometimes treated her rudely as she worked as a cashier at a restaurant.
``I think I've learned about some of the pain he (Turner) must have felt,'' Danita Turner said. ``We (blacks) weren't treated equally. We were treated like animals. I really didn't think about these things; my eyes have been opened.'' MEMO: NAT TURNER'S LIFE
Nat Turner, born the slave of Benjamin Turner in October 1800, in
Southampton County, was educated and introduced to Christianity by Ben
Turner and became a well-known minister among Southampton slaves.
When Benjamin Turner died, Nat Turner was passed from slaveholder to
slaveholder, eventually becoming separated from his wife.
Turner decided to seek retribution. He said he got a ``sign'' from
the heavens when the sun turned a bluish-green and then began making his
plans. On Aug. 20, 1831, Turner and seven other male slaves laid plans
for the revolt.
On Aug. 22, 1831, Turner and his band of about 40 slaves killed
between 57 and 60 whites in and around Southampton County. On Aug. 23,
they attempted to attack the home of Dr. Simon Blunt, but Blunt's slaves
assisted in capturing and attacking Turner's men.
Turner escaped and hid for nearly a month in a cave. He was captured
on Oct. 30. On Nov. 3, 1831, he was presumed to have dictated his
confession to Thomas R. Gray in his jail cell. On Nov. 11, 1831, Turner
was hanged.
Source: The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831, A Compilation of Source
Material. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II, Staff
Danita Turner, a descendant of Nat Turner, goes over her film role
with director Stanley E. Squire Holcomb.
by CNB