Walter Johnson

Walter Johnson’s The Lord Is a Man of War: John Brown and His World is due in May.

Signs in the Heavens: Nat Turner’s Revolt

Walter Johnson, 22 October 2026

In​ the long history of mass racial killing in the United States, Nat Turner’s revolt stands out as the one instance in which the perpetrators were Black and the victims white. Beginning late on the night of 21 August 1831, the rebels went from house to house in Southampton County, Virginia, murdering all the white people they could. Their numbers grew as they were joined by enslaved...

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