![]() Turner was tried and hanged in the nearby town of Jerusalem. There, on Francis’s land, the slave preacher hid, having led a revolt of fellow-slaves that drew its inspiration from the Bible in question and ended in the deaths of at least fifty-five white residents of Southampton County, Virginia. Nathaniel Francis owned the property on which Nat Turner was captured, in October, 1831. And I said”-deeper this time, slower-“ ‘Mmm-hmmmm.’ ” ![]() ![]() So I said, ‘Mmm-hmm.’ But then she told a little bit about her history, and she mentioned Nathaniel Francis. “Well, there are a lot of folk who call and make all kinds of claims. Ellis smirked slightly and rolled his eyes. “To a young lady by the name of Wendy Porter.” She had e-mailed him, saying that she had Nat Turner’s Bible. He’d clearly told the story of the call before, but when I spoke with him this past spring, in his office on an upper floor of the glassy Capital Gallery Building, on Maryland Avenue, he repeated it for me with all the shock and wonder that it warranted. Ellis is a natural storyteller, with a voice that mixes congestion and control in a manner reminiscent of Jesse Jackson’s. ![]() A few years ago, Rex Ellis, the associate director of curatorial affairs for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which will open in September on the Mall in Washington, D.C., made a phone call. ![]()
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