Surviving Southampton: Finding Women in Nat Turner’s Community

On June 24, 2021, historian Vanessa Holden delivered a Banner Lecture about her new book about how women contributed to America’s most famous slave rebellion, often called Nat Turner’s Rebellion.

In this talk Dr. Holden spoke about material from her book, Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community. She discussed her research process and the types of materials that reveal the Black women’s history of Southampton County, Virginia. She covered how women contributed to America’s most famous slave rebellion, often called Nat Turner’s Rebellion. And she talked about her present-day public history work in Southampton County.

Dr. Vanessa M. Holden is an assistant professor of History and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. Her writing has been published in several academic publications as well as in "Process: A Blog for American History," and "The Rumpus." She also blogs for "Black Perspectives" and "The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History." She co-organizes the Queering Slavery Working Group (#QSWG) with Jessica Marie Johnson (Johns Hopkins University). She is deeply committed to diversity, inclusion, and equity work and is the 2019–20 recipient of the UKY College of Arts and Sciences Promotion of Diversity and Inclusion Award. She is the author of the book, Surviving Southampton: Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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