So now it is "petit-genocide"?   As most historians
use the term, genocide refers to an actual result, 
not a potential plan--i.e., the long-term, concerted, 
and massive extermination of a particular ethnic 
group.  Any effort to apply high, medium, or large 
qualifiers greatly diminishesthe chilling reality of 
human eradication on an unprecedented scale, 
which the term has always implied.  Turner may 
have acted with genocidal intent, but the selective 
murders of so few whites (he intentionally spared
some) does not qualify as genocide.

The readers of this list may not be be aware of 
"Black Americans of Achievement," a book series
for young adults (classroom use), with connec-
tions to the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-
American Research at Harvard and published by
Chelsea House.  The volume, Nat Turner: Slave
Revolt Leader, by Terry Bisson, published in 1988,
has a color cover showing an artist's rendering of 
a glaring Nat holding a long, scary sword--along-
side the words:  "Introductory Essay by Coretta 
Scott King."  In that essay, which apparently is 
added to each title in the series, she restates MLK's commitment to "serving 
humanity in the spirit of 
love and nonviolence" (p. 8) and makes no direct 
reference to Turner.  The author does not flinch
from accurately describing the killings in detail,
even including infant-murder, while the back 
cover reveals Nat's "achievement":  "dispelling a
widely held myth that blacks were content as 
slaves.  Nat Turner's courage in the face of insur-
mountable odds has since become a powerful exam-
ple to all who fight for liberty."

I mention that to remind all of us that History has
always blended the factual with the ideological and is
rarely as "neat" or "simple" or "final" as some would
wish it to be. 
 
While most of us seek a world in which we are 
neither murderers nor the murdered, all killing
should be assessed in context.  Frederick Hacker's
typology of violence employed for different ends
by "Crusaders, Criminals, and Crazies" makes that
point.  Historically, violence has been the vehicle for
the most significant changes in the human condition,
both good and bad. The American Revolutionaries 
gained their independence through violence and then
used their violent independence to gain prosperity 
from the enforced labor of slaves working stolen lands
soaked with Indian blood.  John Brown's terrorism, 
which was designed to make Virginians recall and 
relive Turner's earlier uprising, hastened the massive
violence of the transformative Civil War.  Gandhi, 
MLK, and countless other social transformers  
consciously provoked the violent reactions of their 
adversaries in order to bring their causes to 
national and international attention.  For much of 
human history, the most outrageous acts of 
violence have successfully attracted the press 
coverage necessary to combat apathy, complacency,
and ignorance in the general populace.

Best to All, 

Fred Fausz
St. Louis  


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