Nat Turner's Community (1831) w/ Vanessa Holden

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2021

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s August 22nd. This day in 1831, Nathaniel “Nat” Turner is leading a rebellion in Southampton, Virginia — what would become perhaps the most famous slave revolt in the Antebellum South. But there’s a hidden story.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Vanessa Holden of the University of Kentucky to discuss how it was the larger community in Southampton, particularly women, who made the rebellion possible.

Vanessa is the author of Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner's Community — find it wherever you get your books!

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from
0:06.1	Radiotopia my name is Jody Avergan. This day August 22, 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia, a two-day rebellion is taking place
0:17.5	led by Nathaniel Nat Turner.
0:20.5	Turner's rebellion is one of the most notable and consequential slave revolts in this era.
0:24.6	This is actually our first time talking about Matt Turner on the show, so we will talk a little bit about
0:29.1	Nat Turner, but we also think that there are parts of this story that are less covered or less remembered. So here to discuss the
0:36.2	Nat Turner Rebellion, the wrinkles that add some complexity to the story are as
0:40.9	always Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of
0:44.0	Wellesley hello there hello Jody hey there and also joining us our special
0:49.0	guests for this episode is Vanessa Holden of the University of Kentucky she She is the author of, among other things, the book,
0:55.2	Surviving Southampton, African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner's Community.
1:00.8	It is nice when the title of the book lays out all the elements that we want to discuss so we will try and touch on women, resistance, Nat Turner, and community as part of this story.
1:10.0	Vanessa, welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this.
1:12.0	Hi, thanks for having me. Okay, so can I just open up this
1:16.4	conversation by saying I'm so excited to be in conversation with you Vanessa because I put your
1:20.7	book on my syllabus and I cannot wait to have my students discuss it because I think most people are familiar with Nat Turner or they heard about the rebellion they know that it's the most you know violent or deadly rebellion but that's
1:35.8	about it it sort of stops right there so can you for our listeners really lay
1:41.8	out sort of the scene of what happens and then
1:45.5	tell us what your book what your book lays out as well. Sure so the Southampton
1:51.5	Rebellion you know it wasn't the first slave rebellion in what becomes the United States.
1:58.0	It wasn't the longest rebellion. It wasn't even the largest rebellion, but it remains the most famous. Most people had an image of
2:09.3	Nat Turner in a textbook at some point. It probably actually came from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel
	...

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