![]() ![]() ![]() It is hardly a credible document, believed to have been written mostly to calm white fears that a greater insurrection might be at hand. Turner’s confession was published by Thomas Gray, a white attorney who interviewed him not long after his capture and just days before his hanging. Accounts from the time estimate about 60 whites were killed in the insurrection, and in the weeks that followed, many more blacks were killed in retribution. What little is known about Nat Turner - the preacher and slave who in 1831 led a bloody two-day revolt in southern Virginia - is suspect. Yet the Nat Turner story has never failed to inspire a passionate response. The film’s reception at Sundance - “instant rapture,” by one account - has been explained in part as a reaction to the allegations of exclusion and discrimination that have fueled the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. No one can really know who Nat Turner was, but these divergent portraits are reminders of the role slavery continues to play in shaping race relations in this country, leaving black and white Americans struggling to find a common language for this largely unspoken tragedy. ![]() He describes the rebel slave as “a measured, self-determined man of faith, whose courage and sacrifice left him a martyr.” He calls his movie “the black ‘Braveheart.’” Parker’s vision of Turner is distinctly different. ![]()
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