History-Making Slave Rebellion Still Sparks Fire In Newark: Remembering Nat Turner

NEWARK, NJ — They took up arms and fought back. This is one of many reasons why it is important to remember the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion – and why an annual remembrance event continue to take place in Newark.

The 17th annual commemoration of the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion will be held at 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 21 at Nat Turner Park, 171 Muhammad Ali Avenue.

The program will take place near the entrance of the park at the intersection of Muhammad Ali Avenue and Jeliff Avenue. It is being sponsored by the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) and Friends of Nat Turner Park. For more information, contact (973) 801-0001.

The legacy that Turner inspired is complex. A charismatic and fiery preacher, he led an insurrection against the family who enslaved him in 1831, eventually rallying dozens of others in an uprising that resulted in the murder of an estimated 55 white people. After hiding for weeks, Turner was later found, convicted and hanged.

In the aftermath, white mobs and militias murdered anywhere from 100 to 200 Black people, many of whom had nothing to do with the uprising. The state also executed 56 enslaved people accused of being part of the insurrection.

According to History.com:

“The incident put fear in the heart of Southerners, ended the organized emancipation movement in that region, resulted in even harsher laws against enslaved people, and deepened the schism between slave-holders and free-soilers (an anti-slavery political party whose slogan was ‘free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men’) that would culminate in the Civil War.”

“Nat Turner’s rebellion put an end to the white Southern myth that slaves were either contented with their lot or too servile to mount an armed revolt,” Britannica.com states.

Even today – nearly two centuries later – the events of the uprising still echo as far north as Newark.

“We have this observance each year because we believe it is important to remember what Nat Turner and his comrades did – they took up arms and fought back against their enslavers,” POP chair Lawrence Hamm said.

Hamm said it is fitting to hold the annual event in Nat Turner Park, which is the only park in the United States named after Nat Turner.

Turner’s uprising was not the only slave rebellion in the United States. There were hundreds of slave rebellions in this country, the longtime civil rights organizer said.

“Our armed resistance to slavery took place for several hundred years during the period of colonization in the western hemisphere and continued for nearly a century after American independence,” Hamm said.

“Black people fought against slavery in Africa,” he continued. “We rose up against our captors on the slave ships. And we rebelled against it on the plantations, in the towns and cities of the north as well as the south. Nat Turner’s Rebellion and the hundreds of other slave uprisings inside and outside the United States, including the Haitian Revolution, inspired and gave momentum to the abolitionist movement, led to the Civil War, and helped bring about the end of slavery in this country.”

“Perhaps the greatest slave rebellion of all was the Civil War, when more than 200,000 enslaved black men escaped from bondage and joined the ranks of the Union Army,” he continued. “They took up arms, helped to defeat the Confederacy and destroy the institution of chattel slavery.”

“The story of slave rebellions is a glorious chapter in the ongoing struggle for freedom in America,” Hamm insisted. “However, this is a story that those in power want to erase from our history books.”

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