I Think We Should Have A Slave Revolt History Month!!!!

Since the governors of Mississippi & Virginia love Confederate History Month,I'm sure they won't love my idea!But,I'll throw it out there anyway!How's about a Slave Revolt History Month?

During this month,we will honor brave slave warriors like Denmark Vesey,Nat Turner,Gabriel Prosser & many others.Documentaries celebrating the deaths of slave owners with vivid reenactments should flood the History Channel.Because they sure air enough Civil War documentaries that seem to glorify both the North & the South.

It makes my stomach turn whenever folks act like these Confederate traitors seceded from the Union because of State's rights.We all know that it was really about slavery.These were slave owners who were fighting to keep their way of life.And they are the same folks that some of my ancestors revolted against.While some slaves were docile & obedient,others organized slave rebellions.

Along with the glorification of the Confederacy,I believe that it would be appropriate for the descendants of slaves to publicly recognize the valiant slaves who fought for a different cause.While the Confederate soldiers were fighting for the freedom to own other human beings,slaves who participated in revolts were fighting for their right to live as a free person.

Here's more info on slave revolts:

"Very few, if any, African-Americans accepted their status as slaves. Most, if not all, slaveowneres were completely aware of this and, in general, they lived in fear of the African-Americans under the control. Not only did slaveowners expect slaves to run away, letters and diaries give strong evidence that slaveowners (and even non-slaveowners) in the south believed that rebellion was imminent. They had lived with this fear since 1792 when the Haitian Revolution proved unambiguously that slaves were ready to revolt and could do so with a passion that was awe-inspiring. Added to this mix was the fiery rhetoric of abolitionists, both black and white. The most frightening, to the slaveowners, of these abolitionists was Henry Highland Garnet who had escaped from slavery at the age of ten. In 1843 he called for a slave strike and suggested that it escalate to a slave revolt. By this point, the south had been rocked by three slave revolts which had struck fear to the very hearts of slaveowners.


Gabriel Prosser-The first major slave revolt in the south was led by a twenty-four year old slave named Gabriel Prosser. All of the major slave revolts in the south were led by people like Prosser, who were deeply Christian and were fired by religious indignation against slavery. Prosser was the first. In 1800, he began to lay plans to take the city of Richmond, Virginia, by force. He planned to invade Richmond, attack the armory, and arm his rebel slaves. By August of 1800, he had thousands of slaves enlisted and had stored up an armory of weapons, including guns. He was betrayed by two followers and, on the day of his revolt, with over a thousand followers ready to attack Richmond, the bridges into Richmod had been destroyed in a flood. The state militia attacked him the next day and he and his followers were hanged.

Althought Prosser's revolt ended in defeat, it terrified slaveowners throughout the south. Prosser had come very close to taking Richmond. If he had not been betrayed and if the bridges had not washed out, it is almost certain that he would have successfully taken the city of Richmond with his slave followers. Prosser's revolt was the closest America came to a revolution on the same scale as that in Haiti."(END OF EXCERPT)Read more here.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi doesn't want to address slavery.Even though the state of Mississippi was deeply mired in it.

Here's more on that from Yahoo News:

"The dustup over Virginia's proclamation for Confederate History Month seems like a lot of noise over something that "doesn't amount to diddly," Mississippi's governor said in an interview aired Sunday.

Virginia's Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, apologized for leaving out of his proclamation any reference to slavery. He added language to the decree calling slavery "evil and inhumane" after being criticized for reviving what many Virginians believe is an insensitive commemoration of its Confederate past.

Fellow GOP Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi said he doesn't think the proclamation was a mistake.

"To me, it's a sort of feeling that it's a nit, that it is not significant, that it's not a — it's trying to make a big deal out of something (that) doesn't amount to diddly," Barbour said in the interview aired on CNN's "State of the Union."

Last year, Barbour issued a similar proclamation in his state that did not mention slavery. He also noted that his state has a holiday, Confederate Memorial Day, that has been maintained by Democratic and Republican governors and the state's majority-Democrat legislature. The state also honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate general Robert E. Lee on the same day in January.

Barbour said he was not aware of any complaints that the holiday was offensive.

"I don't really see what to say about slavery, but anybody that thinks that you have to explain to some people that slavery is a bad thing, I think that goes without saying," Barbour said.

Mississippi's events aren't embraced by everyone.

"I think it's unfortunate that the governor is so insensitive to the atrocities made against African-Americans in this country by the former Confederate States," said Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP. "As governor of the state with a higher percentage of African-Americans that any other, we would hope he would be more sensitive to them."

"We have always raised out opposition to any memorial day that would raise some type of positive light on the Confederacy that broke away from the United States," Johnson said. "We consider that treason."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

While folks like Gov.Haley Barbour & Gov. Bob McDonnell glorify slave owners in their proclamations,I will be celebrating the slaves who did away with these despicable people!