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89 ] chapter 2 “n.t. 11 11 31” nathaniel turner, symbolism, memorialization, and an experimental poetics “the knightliest of the knightly race / who since the days of old / have kept the lamp of chivalry / alight in hearts of gold.” So reads the inscription carved onto the base of a Confederate memorial close to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, in the American South. This edifice starkly memorializes a horrifying history of racial terrorism in defense of white masculinity by exalting in the “knightliest of the knightly race” as custodians of the “lamp of chivalry.” As recently as November 14, 2007, “N.T. 11 11 31” was found spray-painted onto the monument .1 The incendiary overtones of this unequivocal message written by an unknown hand demand recognition. Spectral black text authoritatively obliterates the pale grayness of official lettering in a bold statement of radicalism. A haunting display of impassioned denunciation, these cryptic numbers and letters reject mythical symbolism associating whiteness with honor and “chivalry.” A powerful irony is communicated in the fact that “the knightly race” is the only text not partially covered by black spray paint, while the mixture of numbers and letters renders the message meaningless to those with no prior knowledge regarding this historical event. Clearly, “N.T.” is Nathaniel Turner, the leader of the Southampton revolution that was enacted by enslaved men during August 1831 and led to the deaths of fifty-five whites and countless numbers of enslaved women and men in brutal reprisals. As an unauthorized statement spray-painted onto official white stone, “N.T. 11 11 31” documents Turner’s presence through absence by telling yet refusing to tell. Transgressing the authority of a public space sacred to white memory and regardless of the fact that we do not know his or her gender or racial identity, the artist suggests that Turner’s heroism can be more forcefully recovered within an unofficial black folkloric imagination . As Henry Tragle insists, “Nat Turner did exist as a folk-hero to several generations of black men and women.”2 While easily dismissible among whites as the unintelligible graffiti of disaffected youth, this enigmatic message symbolizes resistance for audiences within African American communities . According to this graffiti artist’s definition of history, this monument 90 ] characters of blood memorializing a white supremacist’s vision of the “knightly race” operates as a battleground for the struggle over memory. More damningly still, Desiree Hunter’s article “Alabama Capitol’s Confederate Monument Vandalized,” published in the Decatur Daily News includes a photograph confirming that more than graffiti was discovered on the monument. As she writes, an unknown individual climbed over the fence not only to spray coded markings onto the stone base but also to paint the grayed stone face and hands of one of the Confederate soldiers black. As an indication of the seriousness with which they confronted this act, the Alabama Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans immediately advertised “a $1,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those responsible,” claiming that these actions represented a “hate crime.”3 Just as a reward notice was posted for Nathaniel Turner’s body in the nineteenth century, so too a price has been placed upon the quest for his memory in the twenty-first century. Further speculations by whites in the article even go so far as to suggest that the defilement of their monument was likely to have taken place on November 11 rather than November 14, a date that remains significant not only as “Veterans Day” but also as the day upon which Turner was executed to satiate a white public clamoring for his death. As these recent events reveal, Turner’s power resides not so much in the realities of a life lived but in his mythical symbolism, as fallacies regarding his biography continue to proliferate in the national imagination and popular memory. His ambivalent history operates not only as the record of a repeatedly misunderstood heroic legacy but also as an evocative catalyst to an untold tradition of black resistance. As a slippery site of violation and violence, his body and memory constitute an alternative slave narrative. As the antithesis of white gradualist abolitionism, Turner’s multiple legacies were forged in polemical controversy and proslavery vilification. White-generated oral histories, reward notices, newspaper narratives, engravings, and literary adaptations all emerged in the wake of his rebellion, attesting to his widespread distortion and mystification. Unique for its enigmatic wordlessness, this bold artist’s graffiti statement celebrates...

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