The 1839 uprising aboard the slave ship Amistad, a long-overlooked revolt and trial, received the Hollywood treatment in the late 1990s. Similarly, “The Birth of a Nation,” having its theatrical release on Friday, puts Nat Turner, who led an 1831 insurrection in Virginia, at the center of the tale. Turner led a group of 70 armed slaves and free blacks in an uprising that killed about 60 whites. That victory brought independence on Jan. 1, 1804, making Haiti the first nation to arise from a slave rebellion. Tubman is a reminder that, like Turner, countless black slaves organized sustained, sometimes-successful rebellions, fighting and dying for their freedom in myriad ways.

Source: New York Times October 07, 2016 16:08 UTC