The Birth of a Nation

Nat Turner and the Making of a Movement

Nate Parker

• Editore: 37 Ink
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781501156595
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: African American History

This official tie-in to the highly acclaimed film, The Birth of a Nation, surveys the history and legacy of Nat Turner, the leader of one of the most renowned slave rebellions on American soil, while also exploring Turner's relevance to contemporary dialogues on race relations. Based on astounding events in American history, The Birth of a Nation is the epic story of one man championing the spirit of resistance as he leads a rough-and-tumble group into a revolt against injustice and slavery. Breathing new life into a story that has been rife with controversy and prejudice for over two centuries, the film follows the rise of the visionary Virginian slave, Nat Turner. Hired out by his owner to preach to and placate slaves on drought-plagued plantations, Turner eventually transforms into an inspired, impassioned, and fierce anti-slavery leader. Beautifully illustrated with stills from the movie and original illustrations, the book also features an essay by writer/director, Nate Parker, contributions by members of the cast and crew, and commentary by educator Brian Favors and historians Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Daina Ramey Berry who place Nat Turner and the rebellion he led into historical context. The Birth of a Nation reframes the way we think about slavery and resistance as it explores the passion, determination, and faith that inspired Nat Turner to sacrifice everything for freedom.

My Journey with Nat Turner

BY NATE PARKER

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

—REVELATION 6:2 (KJV)

“How many of you know who Nat Turner is?” I wasn’t the only one staring blankly at my African-American Studies professor. I’d overheard the name once or twice in my childhood, but without context—the where, the why, and the what of his story—his name had no resonance. My instructor paused a beat more before alleviating our curiosity. “Nat Turner led the most successful slave revolt in American history.” The words “slave” and “revolt” in the same sentence seemed incongruent. He went on, “This revolt would not only send shock waves across this entire nation, but would aid in precipitating the American Civil War.” I blinked back incredulity. Anyone who knew anything of American history knew enslaved Africans endured, but didn’t dare fight. Anyone whose education mirrored my own knew it was benevolent Abe Lincoln who, following his moral compass, led this country to war, with the hope of freeing the slaves. This was what I had been taught, facts inscribed in the history books of my youth. If this Nat Turner truly existed, wouldn’t he, too, have been in those same books? It made no sense. As confused as I was, it was my professor’s next statement that rocked me the most. “This revolt . . . it took place in Southampton County, Virginia.”

As the saying goes, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, about forty-two miles east of Southampton County, Virginia. A decade of history courses and yet not once had there been a lesson, a lecture, or an assignment about the slave preacher, “General Nat”—the literate man of God who would engage in a holy war, sacrificing all he had to lead his people out of bondage. At that moment, I vowed to never again take another person’s word regarding the narrative of my ancestors. It was then that I took hold of my miseducation and became hell-bent on untangling the twisted threads of its revisionist narrative. My independent study led me not only to Nat Turner but also to countless others who rose and fell in the name of liberation: Toussaint Louverture, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, to name a few. This desperate journey toward truth became my purpose, my North Star. It would not only serve in expanding my knowledge regarding this country’s past, it would serve as the impetus of my desire to explore Nat Turner’s life using the platform of film.

When I decided to produce a film on Nat Turner, I wanted to be very intentional about drawing parallels between the past and the present. I felt this would be the best way to provide context to many of the obstacles we face as I write with race in this country and in the entertainment industry. In society, there have been countless culprits responsible for both planting and spreading seeds of racial injustice. In film, all signals point to D.W. Griffith and his 1915 propaganda film The Birth of a Nation. This film was not only successful in influencing a massive swath of the country’s population to embrace white supremacy as a form of self-preservation, it also laid a rock-solid foundation for this country’s interracial affairs, one that still stands today. Set during the Civil War and Reconstruction, this film used carefully arranged moving images to tap deeply into the subconscious of an entire nation. In the wake of the film’s release, we saw not only the resurgence of the near extinct Ku Klux Klan, but also the then president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, hail the movie as a massive triumph. While studying this film, two things became immediately clear to me. First, that we are now harvesting the results of the seeds planted by Griffith all those years ago. And second, if we as an industry are to move forward, we must confront the injuries of our past. Reclaiming Griffith’s title and repurposing it as a tool for progress and social justice was, in my mind, a good first step. The title, The Birth of a Nation, became a call to action, a challenge to all to “birth” a new nation of storytellers, truth speakers, and justice seekers. What Griffith used to hardwire, I would use to rewire. What he used for subjugation, I would use for liberation. I had a plan. I had a title. I had my hero. Yet I had no script.

When I began writing the script, I knew I wanted to present the story of a hero. I was less interested in the “typical” slave narrative, which hinges upon rampant victimization where the enslaved have little recourse. Instead, I wanted a story in which the hero clearly sees resistance as an option to overcoming his oppression. Brian Favors, an educator, wrote in reference to the film, “Individuals like Patrick Henry, known for his revolutionary ideals of ‘liberty or death,’ and William ‘Braveheart’ Wallace are deemed heroic because of their courage to pay the ultimate price for freedom against obstacles that are too frightening for most to confront. For people of African descent, who continue to experience racial oppression, cultural heroes are in short supply. Patrick Henry’s belief that ‘the great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun,’ was part of an American tradition that so revered freedom from colonial oppression that the use of violence to resist was considered sacrosanct. His heroic declaration of ‘give me liberty or give me death,’ serves as a symbol of strength and sacrifice to white Americans who continue to utilize this battle cry to cultivate patriotism and pride. Unfortunately, black heroes who exhibit acts of courage in the face of racial oppression are rarely, if ever, acknowledged.”

Inspired by the movie Braveheart, my goal was to create a heroic character whose trajectory bends toward resistance and ultimately triumph. This approach was especially significant to me for I had never encountered a film in which an African hero forcefully resisted. While I wanted to create material that would inspire hope, it was essential that the story line also be both incendiary and provocative. The creation of characters who are archetypically “good” or “bad” is an easy trap for a storyteller dealing with American slavery to fall prey to: Good and helpless black people are brutalized by demonic bad white people. This setup pits avaricious, sociopathic, and villainous whites against docile and impotent African victims who are being brought, helplessly, to the slaughter. This approach allows audience members to disassociate themselves from anyone with whom they cannot identify. They can avoid discomfort for the most part because they have no empathy for the characters. Benevolent whites think, “What kind of human being could do such a thing to another?” while across the aisles exhausted blacks exclaim, “I’m tired of seeing these slave movies.”

With this in mind, I wanted to delve deeper into slavery and its infrastructure so that I could better understand the psychology of all of those who participated. My research, which involved social, economic, and political history, gave me deeper insight into the complexities of the times and these people who endured them. The more I studied, the more myths and mistruths I discovered from my childhood miseducation. I learned of the planter class and America’s desperate dependency on chattel slavery to sustain and propel the country’s economy. I learned just how far the tentacles of slavery reached: farther than the borders of the antebellum South, stretching deep into Northern states, Western territories, and even abroad. I learned of priests, churches, universities, and politicians—who were complicit in the buying, selling, and exploitation of African flesh. I learned about resilient enslaved Africans who survived and endured. I also learned about the enslaved who resisted; those who stood up to a system in which they were routinely raped, murdered, and ripped from their families. This knowledge, newly excavated, but now firmly etched in my mind, decimated the images of the feeble and contented slaves I had previously possessed.

Armed with truth, I dove into the screenwriting process. One of the major goals I set from the beginning was to write the script in such a way that by the time Nat raised his axe, the audience, no matter their color or creed, would be in full support of him swinging it down on his oppressor. To do this I had to first present Nat as a human being. I had to liberate him from images and stories that sought to paint him as a terror-seeking, violent sociopath and reframe him as a man who was inspired by a desperate love for his God, his family, and his fellow captives. I had to show a man who resorted to violence, not out of a knee-jerk need for revenge, but as a last-ditch effort to deal with a system that was methodically destroying so many lives around him. I wanted the audience to be able to see the world as he saw it, challenging them to grapple with the everyday barrage of physical, spiritual, and emotional assault that permeated that world.

Beyond Nat’s particular plight, it was also important to me that each secondary character carry his or her own specific drama; that each have a point of view that not only represented that character’s position in society but also that character’s unique and complex views and opinions regarding his or her environment and the systems that affected his or her everyday life—for better or worse. Juxtaposing these secondary characters’ particular dilemmas with their relationship to our hero created all the stakes necessary to drive the narrative. In writing the character Samuel Turner, I wanted to veer away from creating a typical hillbilly slave owner. We’ve seen villains that love nothing more than spending their days ripping brown skin to shreds. By offering a character who, during his childhood, developed a genuine love for the movie’s hero, my goal was to create a man and a relationship that was much more complicated. By dramatizing the moment when one friend inherits the other, I hope I provided insight into the ways in which the system corrupted everyone involved, even those who were well intentioned. As far as Samuel is concerned, we see how unchecked cognitive dissonance can rot a man’s soul. Not only did I want his relationship with Nat to give insight into the social breakdown of this time period, I wanted it to have resonance even today. Far too often we attribute immorality and wrongdoing to individuals, rather than assessing the environments that craft their behavior. My approach seems better suited to allow viewers to truly connect to Samuel Turner’s quest to be a “good” slave owner, to let the audience take the journey with him as his best efforts are thwarted by a pervasively corrupt ecosystem.

Nate studies his vision board during prep.

Another noteworthy relationship is that of Nat and Cherry. What made this relationship particularly difficult to write was the nature of exploring love within the context of bondage. It was devastating to imagine being married to someone when neither you nor your spouse even so much as owned your own body. Yet for so many it was a reality. Not only did slaves not own their own bodies, they had no control over the safety of, or their proximity to, their loved ones. It was under these circumstances that Nat and Cherry exchanged vows and bore a child.

Religion is another theme I wanted to explore. I was particularly drawn to the dichotomy between the two groups—the enslaved and the enslavers, blacks and whites—both of whom worshiped a God of the same name, but had drastically opposed interpretations of The Word. For white Christians, the Bible was used, as Nat says in the film, to subjugate, to “support our bondage.” For black Christians, it was a source of hope and comfort.

In addition to dramatizing the tool and role of religion in the characters’ lives, I also sought to create images that challenged Christian norms. I achieved this by starting the script with an African prologue, scripting a scene that would introduce African spirituality into Nat’s life at an early age. Nat comes to know Christianity but only after he’s embraced his African culture and heritage, which history tells us was revealed to him by his mother and grandmother, who maintained ties to their African traditions. As a result, Nat has the ability to see his faith, not as “the white man’s religion,” but as the pre-European, pre-colonial form of Christianity it has always been. It is my opinion that this tether to his heritage allowed him to better see how the individuals in his ecosystem were perverting the Christian faith and using it as an instrument of economic injustice and social control.

I also wanted to challenge contemporary religious norms depicting the afterlife. Jesus, God, and angels are most often portrayed as Europeans. So much so that as a young boy, I could not even call to my imagination an image of a non-European angel. By presenting the image of an African angel in the film, I hoped to provide a type of counterprogramming, a way in which the audience could also think more inclusively about spirituality or at least the iconography of spirituality.

Finally, one scene with religious overtones came from one of the facts about Nat’s life that has survived. We know that Nat Turner was approached by a man named E. T. Brantley, who asked him to baptize him in repentance of his sins. Turner agreed. While imagining how shocking it must have been, at the time, to see this man of African descent baptize this man of European descent, I was prompted to ask myself if I’d seen such an act. The sad realization was that I had not. At thirty-six years old, I had never seen a white man baptized by a black man. I thought the event was particularly dramatic and would not only serve as a powerful scene in the film but also open the viewer’s mind to an act of faith seldom articulated in such an inclusive way.

Finally, I wanted to explore the aftermath of Nat’s revolt, not just the punitive backlash, the tightening of restrictive legislation limiting the movement of the enslaved, the increase in the number of lynchings—but the progressive effects as well: the surge in acts of resistance following Nat’s revolt, the rise in abolitionist political activity against the slaveholding states—all precipitating the Civil War. This serves particular significance because it thwarts the idea of the Turner revolt as an “isolated incident,” giving life to the actual truth of the rebellion’s impact, not only on the county, but on the entire country.

It’s hard to describe the feeling I had when I finally wrote “Fade Out.” So many tears on the page. The day I finished the first draft, I closed my laptop and prayed. I prayed for the humility to remain a servant to the project, that I would have the courage to commit to seeing it to its completion. While I knew many notes and dra...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Dedication
• Part I: The Birth of a Movement
• Part II: A History of Resistance
• Part III: Further Exploring the Narrative
• Part IV: The Film
• Part V: Nat Turner Matters
• Acknowledgments
• Suggested Reading
• About the Contributors
• Copyright