Nathaniel “Nat” Turner was born in Southampton County, Virginia on October 2, 1800, the son of slaves owned by Benjamin Turner, a prosperous farmer. Taught to read by the son of his owner, Turner studied Christianity which he interpreted as condemning slavery. Turner also began to believe that God had chosen him to free his people from slavery. He soon became known among fellow slaves as “The Prophet.”
Turner was sold to slaveholder Joseph Travis in 1830. Less than a year after the sale, Turner received what he assumed was a sign from God when he witnessed the eclipse of the sun. After sharing this experience with a few close friends, they began to plan an insurrection. While still planning the uprising, Turner saw that the color of the sun had changed to a bluish-green, which he believed was the final sign to initiate the uprising. With this confidence, Turner and seven other slaves moved forward with their plans. They first murdered the entire Travis family and eventually fifty whites in the futile effort to incite a general slave uprising. Only 75 slaves and free blacks joined the rebellion.
They were soon pursued by over 3,000 members of the state militia. Turner and his followers were confronted by militiamen. One was killed and the others were captured. The rebellion was over in 48 hours. Turner escaped and eluded Virginia authorities for two months but was finally captured and tried for insurrection and murder. He was executed six days after his trial on November 5, 1831. In retaliation for the abortive rebellion, nearly two hundred innocent slaves were killed.
Although Nat Turner did not end slavery as he may have hoped, he nonetheless shook the institution to its core. Pro-slavery advocates began calling for greater restrictions on free blacks and slaves in the South and made more demands on Northern whites to cease their interference with the servile institution. Northern abolitionists, however, viewed the uprising differently and intensified their efforts to end slavery throughout the nation.
The Largest Slave Rebellion Was Hidden From U.S. History | AJ+
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Anything you're looking for in particular? We've plenty of comms to explore, though seeing as you're in the mega already, there's links to resources at the bottom of the post proper too
What's a text almost everyone here holds in high esteem? That would help me the most.
The least controversial picks (things communists and anarchists would endorse) would probably be:
Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue -- Leslie Feinberg
The Dawn of Everything -- David Graeber and David Wengrow
Caliban and the Witch -- Sylvia Federici
The Wretched of the Earth -- Franz Fanon pdf
Blackshirts and reds by Parenti is a good starting lefty book, leans ML. Check out Nagarjuna's comment for better anarchist recs.
And here's just a list of books that I've read semi-recently that could spark interest.
Black Liberation and Socialism by Frank Chapman
Counter-revolution of 1776,
Debt by Michael Graeber,
Colonialism by Aime Cesaire,
The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon
The CIA as organized crime
Jakarta Method
I really want people to stop recommending Conquest of Bread as an intro to anarchism. No one needs to read the math on early 20th century agricultural output.
Maybe As We Have Always Done by Leanne Simpson is a better intro. If you want an old dead white dude, Malatesta's Anarchy is more reflective of modern anarchism and gets less in the weeds.
I do want to second the recc's for Cesaire, Fanon and Graeber as well.
Fair! I'll check out your recs as, admittedly, anarchist theory is a bit of blind spot for me.
Honestly anarchists and Marxists share a lot of theory and just emphasize different things.
Like, for example, Federici is a Marxist who's commonly read by anarchists because she rejects the idea of a transitional period and recommends commoning over nationalization as the preferred mode of socialization.
Or like, Fanon is popular for his critiques of nationalism and his calls for a post colonial nationalism the works very differently from currently existing nationalism.
Or like, Angela Davis is popular for her writing on abolition.
State and Revolution
Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue - Leslie Feinberg
The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon
Settlers - J. Sakai
Night Vision: Illuminating War and Class on the Neo-Colonial Terrain - Butch Lee and Red Rover
Black Bolshevik - Harry Haywood
Caliban and the Witch - Silvia Federici
I guess idk if everyone here holds all these in high esteem (I think it's safe to say that of Trans Liberation at least though), or if most have read them, but IMO they should lol. Depends though, what's your level of familiarity with the basics of Marxism (or anarchism, if that's your thing)?
No familiarity. From a US capitalist background, and politically lowercase i independent.
In that case, I would probably file most of these away to read later; a lot of them probably won't be very comprehensible without some knowledge of Marxist theory and the history of 20th century communist movements. Trans Liberation is probably something you could read now though.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c4a567f4eddecfdf9c627a2/t/5d4a0d4d7b3fb6000145f957/1565134231835/Fundamentals+of+Marxism+Leninism.pdf This is a book I read early on as a Marxist. I have since come to disagree with some of it (I think it is rather tainted with dogmatism and Kruschevite revisionism) but I know of no better single book that introduces the basics of what Marxist-Leninists believe (hopefully someone else here does). If you're interested in that at all, I'd recommend this. Though it is rather dry, it's basically a textbook. Idk how many people here have read it, but most of this site are MLs, and I think most would be fundamentally in agreement with this book.
Harry Potter
Well, at least you didn't say Ayn Rand.