About Nat Turner
Nat Turner (October 2, 1800 – November 11, 1831) was an enslaved Black carpenter and preacher who led a four-day rebellion of both slave and free Black people in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Nat Turner's Rebellion resulted in the death of 55 White people before state militias suppressed the uprising. At the same time, 120 Black men, women, and children, many of whom were not involved in the revolt, were killed by soldiers and local mobs in retaliation. Turner was captured in October 1831 and, after a trial, was executed in November. Before his execution, he told his story to attorney Thomas Ruffin Gray, who published The Confessions of Nat Turner in November 1831. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Nat Turner on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. Turner has been depicted in films, literature, and plays, as well as many scholarly works. On October 30, a farmer named Benjamin Phipps discovered Turner hiding in a depression in the earth, created by a large, fallen tree covered with fence rails. Sterling Allen Brown, the first Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia, wrote the poem, "Remembering Nat Turner" in 1932. The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), a novel by William Styron, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1968. Created by Thomas Jay Warren, the state-funded bronze sculpture was dedicated in September 2021.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.