The Return of Nat Turner in Sixties America

One of the less publicized public events of that annus mirabilis 1968 was the annual meeting in November of a venerable academic institution, the Southern Historical Association. Convened in New Orleans was a group of intellectuals knit together by, among other professional ties, a common preoccupation with the Southern past. Prominent among these was C. Vann Woodward of Yale, arguably America's most eminent historian of the South. Also present were three famous novelists: Robert Penn Warren, Ralph Ellison, and William Styron. All native-born Southerners (if Oklahoma City, Ellison's birthplace, qualifies as a Southern city), they were there as participants in a panel, chaired by Woodward, on “The Uses of History in Fiction.” The session took place on November 6, the day after the election of Richard Nixon and seven months and two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was probably the liveliest, best-attended event of an otherwise staid meeting of professors. Much of the interest was generated by the topic and the distinguished panelists, but additional electricity was contributed by a cluster of young blacks in the audience. As passionately interested in the subject as were those on the platform, they were in attendance chiefly to question and challenge Styron. It was his use of history in fiction upon which much of the evening's discussion devolved.