NAT TURNER LIBRARY – SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY, VA – For the 4th consecutive year the most dynamic event in Black history in the United States of America will be commemorated on the land where Nat Turner was born, served Captive Afrikans as a Community Organizer, planned and carried out a successful Slave Revolt. The place is at an institution that is established in his honor, The Nat Turner Library in Southampton County, Virginia 23844.
The weekend event will start Friday evening, August 17 with a meeting to discuss the historic event. A discussion about ways and means to insure that Nat Turner and the BLA will not be forgotten; nor the “WHY” for the brutality visited on white people over a period of 3 days after August 21, 1831.
$500,000 GRANT TO THE ‘VICTIMS’ OF NAT TURNER
Descendants of the victims of Nat Turner are using a $500,000 grant to “develop the Nat Turner Trail Tour.” Nat Turner Day at the Library is to insure that the momentous event is also told and commemorated from a Black perspective.
The Nat Turner Trail was named by the late Reda Faard Khalifah, after she and her husband acquired some of the “Birthland of Nat Turner” in 1990. She died of Breast cancer in 1997, but the work goes on by her living descendants.
NAT TURNER SKULL OWNED BY FORMER GARY INDIANA MAYOR RICHARD HATCHER
Events for the weekend will include a guided tour of The Nat Turner Trail, Saturday August 18. The Old School Institute of Baltimore, MD and Positive Kemetic Visions of Washington, DC will bring a bus full of Black people for the Day. Minister Neal Jackson will also be present with some of the Believers from The Spiritually United Church in Richmond, Virginia.
Though the occasion is solemn, the celebration will be to honor all Black people, especially during the month of August, whose activism against “chattel slavery, second-class citizenship and other forms of oppression,” made it possible for Black people to survive the most heinous crime “against humanity” in the history of the world: The Transatlantic Slave Trade that stole and kidnapped Black people from family, friends, village and the land mass known as Africa. The Crime is the basis for the Demand for Reparations by Afrikan people.
There will be abundant music, dance, food and books available for reading freely about the Nat Turner Revolt and other Black history. The largest intersection on the 123 acre tract of land will be dedicated and named Reparations Freedom, Justice and Equality Square; Tree Naming will be possible for those who would like to embed their own names or the name of someone else near Reparations, Freedom, Justice and Equality Square.
The Nat Turner Day Commemoration generates the largest annual influx of money to carry on the work at the Nat Turner Library. The Tree Naming is designed to take pledges to establish a revenue stream of money into the effort to do the work.
There is unlikely to ever be a grant made to Black people to preserve The Legacy and History of Nat Turner and the BLA. But in the Spirit of Black stalwart, would-be-liberators in our past and present who “make ways out of no way,” the work will be carried on with whatever money is generated.
We also want as much visibility as we can get. It is understood former Gary, Indiana Mayor Richard Hatcher is going to bring the skull of Nat Turner back to Southampton County for a proper burial. High visibiity will at least insure that we are considered as the recipient.
After Nat Turner was executed, his body was dismembered. The skull was sent by messenger to Richmond. The scull never arrived. Like most of the body parts of Nat Turner, it was preserved in a macabre underground collection by white people.
The scull was donated to Mayor Hatcher at a fundraiser for the Civil Rights Museum. But rather than put it on display and collect money for viewing, or whatever, he is on record of saying he is going to return it. We can think of no better place than on the campus of The Nat Turner Library in Southampton County, VA.
For more information about the Nat Turner Library, to donate for the naming of a tree; to reverve a seat on the bus for The Nat Turner Trail Tour, or just to visit at a future time, call 434-378-2140. Or come to 26070 Barhams Hills Road, Drewryville, VA 23844.
H. Khalif Khalifah is a Publishing Consultant, writer and Black Farmer who lives in Southampton County, Virginia. He has been instrumental in the publication of more than 600 books over his career. He is the author of fifteen, the latest book is titled: “The Acquisition and Proper Use of Power: The Destruction of White Supremacy.” He can be communicated via khalifah23844@yahoo.com
