Rise Up: The Legacy of Nat Turner

Been very quiet of late here and I'm probably not going to be blogging much for a while yet, but I do want to stick my head up to talk about a new documentary I'm excited to watch next week.  I have just heard that next Friday National Geographic Channel will broadcast "Rise Up: The Legacy of Nat Turner."  This is timed to appear on the same day that Birth of a Nation opens nationwide.  (And a companion book also came out this week.)  It's very hard to tell the story of the rebellion because so many actors were involved.  There were dozens (maybe in the low dozens, but dozens) of enslaved people who participated in the rebellion, along with a very small number of free people of African descent, dozens of white victims, tens of enslaved people killed without trial, hundreds of militia from Virginia and North Carolina.  There were dozens of trials afterwards in Southampton (the situs of the rebellion), Sussex, Greensville, and as far away as Spotsylvania (near Fredericksburg).  There was vigilante action all over the place, including in coastal North Carolina, and debates throughout the country -- but especially in Richmond -- about the future of slavery.  That Virginia debate led to Thomas R. Dew's extensive proslavery treatise, which is an important link between the academy and proslavery thought.  There are difficult questions to decipher, such as whether Turner was directly influenced by antislavery literature.  That is, there are lots of stories to tell and many, many angles.  (For instance, I wrote nothing about religion because that's not one of the areas I focus on, but there's been great work on the rebellion and religious thought and practices.)

Early October is obviously going to be a big time for talk of slave rebellions -- and I hope the law of slavery, too.  I'm very curious to see how, if at all, the violence and then trials in the wake of the rebellion are handled.  And then there are the lawyers who defended the Turner rebels.  So, so much to talk about.

The image is the Virginia capitol building in Richmond, which is where the House of Delegates debated the future of slavery in Virginia in the wake of the rebellion.  Obviously the anti-slavery forces lost that debate in the spring of 1832.

Update as of October 5: We now have a trailer with Rick Francis, who is a descendant of rebellion victims, and Roger Guenveur Smith, who is one of the actors from Birth of a Nation.  They are looking at Nat Turner's sword and talking about the rebellion.  It's a very enticing introduction to what promises to be a terrific documentary.

The Hollywood Reporter has a story about Rise Up here. And National Geographic also has Justin Fornal's story about Nat Turner now, too.

My hope for the documentary, even more than the film, is that it will show how violence was at the heart of slavery, as well as near the surface, and how that violence affected everyone involved in the system of slavery, in one way or another.  Many reacted with more violence; some saw the violence of slavery and the rebellion and wanted an end to both.  The latter explains the start of the movement in the Virginia legislature in 1832 to end slavery.  Obviously that movement was unsuccessful.

Comments

[anon]

The title puzzles me.

Does your title call for folks to "rise up" as Nat Turner's "legacy" is celebrated?

Or, are you suggesting that folks "rise up" in fulfillment of NT's legacy today?

[Al Brophy]

The title of the documentary is "Rise Up: The Legacy of Nat Turner." I suspect that the title is a reference to what Nat Turner did. The documentary, which I have not seen so I obviously can't speak to its content, is about the legacy of Nat Turner.

[anon]

I was wondering how you understood the title.

Your response certainly makes the meaning plain.