February 24, 2023 • 32 mins
Part graphic novel and part memoir, Dr. Rebecca Hall's Wake: The Hidden History of Women Led Slave Revolts is a beautiful and painful look into the erased history of Black enslaved women resisting and the difficulty of bringing it to light.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane
Never Told Your Protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to another
edition of a book Club. Content warning before we get
into this one, we are going to be talking about
(00:26):
intergenerational racial trauma, slavery, death, sexual assaults. They're all like
heavy topics, so it's not that we're going to get
into them too much, but they're like still really heavy topic, right,
So take care of yourself, do what you need to do.
Today we are discussing the beautifully illustrated and written graphic
(00:46):
novel and memoir Wake The Hidden History of Women led
Slave Revolts, written by doctor Rebecca Hall and illustrated by
Hugo Martinez, and it depicts the difficult journey doctor Hall,
a former attorney and part time teacher an historian, embarked
upon to dig up the lost and rased histories of
slave revolts in the US led by black enslaved women.
(01:09):
It primarily focuses on revolts near New York, although there's
a bunch of other things going on as well. A
New York constructor Hall's hometown, so she was curious about it.
Are also slave revolts on ships, and it is interwoven
with how systemic racism that this country was built upon
obstructed her research all along the way, and how it
(01:31):
impacts her daily life personally and professionally, especially given that
her paternal grandparents were both born enslaved, And just as
she interacts with the lives of people she's teaching or
has taught, she delves into court documents, the logs of
ships carrying enslaved people, old letters, forensic evidence from bones,
(01:52):
and so many other things to track down these rased stories.
And it's a really, really great depiction of this struggle
of a researcher and her storian to find these stories.
Doctor Hall is an activist, educator, and scholar. She has
a history serving as an attorney, yes for low income
tenants and those without homes. She is a writer and
(02:15):
a publisher, especially on topics of race and gender. And
the tag gun is the past is gone, but we
still live in its wake. And the title actually works
on a bunch of different levels, which is cool. The
art is very, very striking. It's beautifully done in shades
of black. It's just it's kind of hard to describe,
(02:35):
but just very very good. It's very beautiful and just
draws you in. Right. If you actually go and follow
doctor Rebecca Hall's Twitter, you can see examples from Hugo
Martinez's drawing and you'll see what it could be like.
I think she does have some excerpts in her Twitter
because the whole other thing Twitter try to suppress her
(02:55):
book as well, and it did the opposite, which is
amazing and I'm glad for because that's how we found it.
But yeah, if he wanted to see an example without
buying the book, you should buy the book. But it
is an amazing depiction, and he does an amazing job
in really showing the depth and the strength within these
horrific conversations and tails, and he does it in a
(03:16):
way that's not sadistic. I guess is the best word,
which can happen pretty quickly in a story like that,
which is honest and true. He really makes sure to
exemplify the strengths of the enslaved people rather than showing
like the disgusting disasters and all of the horrifying acts
(03:37):
or horrifying things of what's happening against them, of abuse
and the assaulted murder that is talked about, rather than
anything else but yeah, it's a really great illustration, and
I think he does a great job in making sure
that what her words, her profound words, and her words
of a lot of depth and feeling that it's translated
on these pages. Yeah, and it was interesting. I read
(03:59):
a bunch of like interviews and articles about it and
about how this was a difficult project for a lot
of reasons, but one of them is, you know, how
do you capture kind of the pain of like being
this researcher and going through this and it's not like
a typical quote like graphic novel type thing, Like it's
you know, you go to a library and you're doing
(04:20):
this research and things like that. So it was very,
very interesting, but yeah, okay, very Basically, the plot follows
doctor Hall's decision to dig into justice and the history
of black women and deciding to pursue all the stories
she could find about black women led slave revolts, and
it begins with her working as an attorney, questioning what
(04:40):
justice means in systems that are inherently racist and sexist,
kind of seeing it play out over and over again.
So she decides to work on a dissertation of women
led slave results, particularly in nearby New York. But in
search of documentation and evidence, she keeps running into scraps
and dead ends, and she is determined to tell all
these hidden stories and is relentless. But this is all
(05:04):
happening while she is dealing with the fallout of slavery
and racism in doing this research, whether it's officials barring
her from accessing records for BS reasons, or confronting the
legacy of enslavement and racism in terms of her students
and her child, her own family, all of those things.
So definitely check it out. It's a it's not a
(05:26):
long read. I won't say it's like easy read, because
obviously it's very painful material, but it's like so powerful
and you should read it right, So we can say
it it's a short ready, but it doesn't have to
be if you're really focusing on the arts and the
graphics that bring out the story. As a plus, I
(05:48):
did listen to the audio version mistakenly thinking that that
was the actual book, but it's in a fantastic add on.
I believe they describe it it's the extended story, as
the story of the story as really about how it
came out and it's a full cast and it has
a lot of it's it's a full live cast, reading
as if you're there, and it's a play. You know,
(06:09):
we've done this often a fiction fiction type of audio,
and he does it with her fiction of the month,
But this is not exactly fiction. It is her adventure
in getting these So we don't see the results necessarily
of what we see here some of the things that
she was able to find finally, But what we do
(06:30):
is hear her struggle in her her journey into getting
to this point and releasing and writing this novel. So
it's a fantastic hearing. If you get a chance to
listen to it, you really really really really should because
it's a whole different experience for the same theme and
wonderful take that she has placed on it. Wait acting
(06:50):
because apparently they wanted like they're nominated for and I'm
gonna call it Audie Awards A U. D I E.
S Well, they're a finalist for the Audience twenty twenty
three award. It's a very cool. It's definitely well worth
the listen. It's nothing else to hear. What she went
through is amazing, m and it's kind of you know,
I gave the like plot rundown. It's kind of hard
(07:10):
to describe though, but essentially you're kind of you're getting
her version of like her researching these stories, and then
we get snippets of those stories, so it's sort of
juxtaposed against each other. So some themes I would say,
(07:38):
like at the beginning, you know, you see her working
as an attorney and having this question of like what
is justice in this white supremacist, sexist, racist society when
she's seeing like these outcomes over and over again, and
as I said, like she was an attorney for like
low income tenants, and so she's just kind of seeing
this over and over, kind of hearing this really racist
(08:02):
you know, advice of like well you have to kind
of behave in a certain ways so they don't think
you're the angry black woman in court and all of
those things, and having a lot of questions like well
what does this mean? Right? I think it's very interesting,
and I know there's something that I really touched in
(08:23):
with her. She was talking about the fact that yes,
immediately they didn't assume that she was a lawyer, that
she was one of the plaintiffs or the defendants, and
having to be like, I'm the representative, they are pleased,
let me buy, having to prove herself as the educated
person who with the law degree, unlike many of the
clerks or any of them in there, or the deputies,
(08:45):
but then also having to give advice and seeing the
bias within course. And I've talked about those many times
on Mike about my own experiences being in the courtroom
and talking to children and talking to about who they
were and how things will play out. And she talked
to one black woman who is one of her clients,
but she also has a white woman that lived in
(09:05):
the same building and had the same lawsuit. The white
woman got all this money and a black plaintiff. In
the audio, so I'm gonna say this in the audio,
the black woman was like, I feel like this is
good for me, this is amazing, Like they've already said
a precedent. And she's like, well, if you want to
get what she got, you're gonna have to do exactly
what she did, which is the white woman tears, pronouncing everything,
(09:27):
unusually being very quiet and polite in all these things. Well,
she probably would have been already, but like making it
be like be white though, and when she when the
woman came to in front of this, she got half
the amount that the white woman did. And that's how
it goes. And then having the regret of telling this
woman her client be white, be more white, be this,
(09:48):
because this is how the justice system works. And I've
had this moment where I've told young black kids, Hey,
I hate to tell you this, and this is gonna
be the gods on his truth. And I don't want hate.
I don't look at this, but because this system is
already set up to have you fail, they have already
had bias against you. It doesn't matter before you walked in,
whether it's for whatever want not this specific group of people.
(10:11):
And there were specific people that I would have to
look out for for certain types of lawyers, certain types
of judges, and who was going to do what and
who had the racial bias and trying to teach the
kid to play the game instead of trying to change
the system. And I know that's kind of the beginning
of why she starts really going into teaching and then
really going into research. And I hate that too, that
I hate that I was a part of that. And
it's a non black person. It's even worse coming from me,
(10:33):
and I hate that I was a part of that system,
but doing what I could do at that moment. And
she talks about that, having that guilt and playing into
the system and then coming out of it and trying
to break that system. And then, of course this is
a whole different conversation, but it hit me real hard
when she was talking about this and knowing exactly what
she meant. And of course I feel like my guilt
(10:56):
is definitely different and my result was different, and that
in the seeing that at how ugly a gross it
really is. Yeah, Yeah, And we do see doctor Hall
kind of grappling with that throughout it, even in her
teaching and her research all that stuff. And so she's
(11:16):
seeing this as an attorney, decides to get her dissertation,
decides to focus on slave revolts led by black women,
and there's a quote in there about kind of being
haunted by the legacy of slavery. Quote, sometimes when you
think you're hunting down the past, the past is hunting you.
(11:37):
I was born to tell the stories. So she does
describe that. She does describe this feeling of like I
need to find these stories that have been erased and
I need to tell them and they are a part
of my life and my history and the history that's
shaping all of this. And it, like I said, it
(11:58):
is a really really excellent depiction of what it's like
doing historical research. This is like, you know, we've researched
for this show, but nowhere near this level. Right, So
this is from articles I've read from historians about it,
saying that this is a very excellent depiction of what
it's like to do historical research. And that did set
(12:19):
apart from most graphic novels. Like I said, it was
kind of a new take on this idea, and that's
one of the reasons she talks about, which she also
at the back of the at least the copy I had,
there was a Q and A with her and she
was describing why she decided to do a graphic novel,
and that was one of the reasons, was like, this
will be a new way to really showcase illustrate what
(12:43):
it's like to be a historian doing this stuff, right,
especially when it comes to the limited amount and we're
going to talk more about this, especially when it comes
to the limited amount of information, the amount of information
that was a race and the amount of information people
want to hide, like the like the odds are stacked
against her for so many reasons, and her traveling all
(13:03):
over the world she really does trying to get this
and hunt down this information. Uh sounds exhausting but inspiring.
Real exhausting, exhausting. Yes, honestly, I was like, this feels like, um,
I do love those scenes in movies where they're doing
the montage and they're like, I gotta go here, I
gotta go here, I gotta go here. It was like that, like,
I feel like they should make a show about how
(13:24):
she did this. Yeah, she's done the audio and it's
time for a show. Now, I agree, I agree, But yeah,
it's it showcases like the traveling of information, because this
is she's looking at you know, before the internet obviously,
but so like on boats or like where did this
information end up after it was on this boat? The
(13:47):
thought process of like, well, this piece of information is missing,
where could it be? Like all of those things, um,
and then yeah, this real pain and frustration of the
research of finding something like a total dead end or
something completely erased and like you'll never know, you'll never
know what happened. So it was it excellently depicted that.
(14:10):
And then there was also just the obviously like the
history of slavery and seeing the aftermath of slavery everywhere,
and that goes back to yes, this pain of the
loss of history, of a rasure of the question of
what gets recorded. And so for instance, like one of
the first things she does is she finds like these names,
(14:31):
and she finds very brief snippets about them, is trying
to piece together their story, and then in the end
it's just a race. Then she can't find it. And
the quote, here's a quote, I can't find her. I'll
never know what happened to Sarah or Abigail, right, and
this one specifically to a revolt that happened on the
(14:54):
state grounds, because we do talk a lot more about
ships and the travel when they're see but in the
transatlantic slave trade, but where they were talking specifically about
a couple of herbles that have happened where they did
sentence people to death in slave people's to death and
(15:14):
or jailed, and this conversation about how it got lost
and she was trying to find out what happened to
these women who were the ones because they just became
numbers essentially, and the pain of them just being numbered
and being property in itself is horrendous. And also knowing
and we're gonna talk about this is like her family,
immediate family members essentially had experienced something to this and
that that was not too far from her generationally, But
(15:36):
like in the conversation that she was trying to discover
who did this, who was this? Who who did this?
And having a few names to the many that died,
and then not even having the correct names and not
even being able to like finding some information just enough
that you know partially what happened, but not the ending
and the trauma of not being able to have resolved
(15:57):
in something that heartbreaking and something that is so triggering
in itself that that she had to go on this
journey without any resolution, right. And that's another thing that
I thought this book did an excellent job at is
really showing the physical impact of researching something so horrendous,
of researching something that directly impacts you, that is in
(16:19):
your family, of like she experiences nausea, She just talks
about like pain in her body and being so exhausted
and her mental health and having these questions and like
these physical things that are happening to her because of
this research she is doing, which I think is really
(16:40):
important to recognize. And then there's also several instances of
her trying to do this research very like legitimately doing
nothing wrong, but these white officials blocking access to documents.
So we see it in the United States when I
(17:01):
believe it's like an archive she's trying to go to
and they're like, no, no, no, you didn't go through
the right procedures. We can't let you in. And she's like,
but I kind of did, and also have a flatland.
They're like no, no, no, no way. And then she
does travel to the United Kingdom and it's like, you know,
trying to get some documents from museum, and the officials,
(17:26):
the white officials, they're very like, oh no, we don't
have any. We were good at abolition, don't you remember,
very very defensive. And then she goes to visit Lloyd's
of London and try to get their archives. And Lloyd's
of Blunton got started insuring slave ships and still around right,
and you know, just they just flat out refused, and
(17:51):
she told them what she was doing, and here's why
all this, like it's totally legitimate, They had no reason
not to let her get that information that they absolutely refuse.
So this is another thing she's constantly fighting with to
get to these stories, of which many of them she
might finally get that information, and it's just not there
(18:12):
right And that's I think that's part of the reason,
and I know she talks about this, is that the
focus is partially on her trying to get this research
is because of the way she was railroaded, essentially by
white people who may even claim to be allies. Like
she talks about how again she comes to the UK
and she's like, everybody's so nice in comparison to what
happened in the US, but the black community in the
(18:34):
UK or like they're just being nice to you because
you know you're they're trying to play nice while you're here,
because you're a visitor essentially, and that it is not
that wonderful as they would want it to be, and
it make it seem and we've talked about bad the
different biases that happen in different areas and regions, and
just because it seems nice doesn't mean that's the truth
of it all. Just because there may not be a
(18:55):
focus on some of the things that happen in other
places doesn't mean that discrimination and race isn't there. But
I really do think it's interesting that we talk about
people who make money, which insurance companies have definitely been
reamed over the cold as they should be continuously, because
it is an ugly, ugly trade in business, and it's
fairly racist and discriminatory today. So knowing that that they're
trying to hide some of that history that absolutely was
(19:18):
making money off of the backs of enslaved people and
their deaths and their demise and their murder, all of that,
and their profiting and the white people who profited off
of that. It's a horrendous and ugly business, which to
a certain degree they still do that today. That's a
whole different conversation. Don't get me started, because you know
(19:38):
I will, But that what we see in her conversation
is that it's so hard to even get past those
blocks that has already been set up by white supremacy
from way back when, from the beginning, essentially for her
to find information, there hasn't been much progress and breaking
down the white supremacy to tell the truth about the
(19:58):
enslaved people and the bolts that happened, right, And on
top of that, another thing that she touches on is
these myths around, like you know, enslaved people didn't resist.
Are other stories that are basically just deflecting the blame
from anywhere where it should be, which was the white
(20:19):
slavers and people propping it up. But that being so important,
It's like this clarity when telling the story of enslavement
and why it was one of the one of the
reasons why she wanted to do it even though it
was so painful, when it was so difficult, and there
are all these things in her way, and she did
find some facts that sort of we're telling her like, oh, yes,
(20:42):
I knew I was onto something. One of them is
one and ten ships of enslaved people experienced a revolt,
and here's a quote. The more women on board of
slave ship, the more likely a revolt. So again, where
is that history. She's like, found this, but there's no
the stories are there. And one of the reasons that
(21:03):
she and others think that this is is in part
because of gendered stereotypes that women aren't a threat, so
they were forced to stay on deck near weapons and
also where they could be sexually abused, but this allowed
this was the way that they could lead these revolts, right,
And she talks about the fact that many of times
(21:24):
that the white slave version, those on the board on
ships really were naive, thinking that women wouldn't do anything,
and so therefore they just really let them be. Of course,
I talk about the horrendousness of the activities that happened
on board when they were released and why it was
so horrific, and of course that that to me is
(21:46):
like that, Yeah. A lot of the conversation that she
has in the Bugs is that many of the enslaved
at that time would rather die than go into this
horrific situation that they know is even more awful than
could be told, and that that that that there was
no other options, knowing that in the sea they would die,
(22:08):
but that would be much better than what they would
have to suffer in the mainland and then in the
colonies at that time. And we saw that during the
revolts in many of things that they talk about Indian
sam and Um the unknown woman in the beginning of
the book, which one of the big revolts, and they
talked about how she could not find this woman and
(22:30):
who she was or where she came from, but both
were prosecuted because she had gone and her and m Sam,
who I believe was a native person who was enslaved
as well, that they would rather die than continue the
way they had, and they they took out the entire
(22:50):
family because they knew if one one was alive that
they would still be under ownership and would still be
horrifically abused and enslaved. So all had to go, and
it was an interesting In my audio version, they do
have an enacted They enact the whole story, and it's
interesting how they hear and what they even bring the
children of the white plantation owners. They have that as
(23:14):
a part of the conversation and then have the conversation
between them about why this is so important. We also
find the gendered prosecution. Essentially, the woman is burned at
the stake while the man was hung, and it was
during that time that this had been where the women
were under property, whether they are white or of a
(23:34):
different race, they were under the property of their husband
as well, so therefore as property, this was treason to
go at. Instead of just murder, it was treason. So
they had a different type of punishment, which I found
interesting as well. And apparently this was the revolt, according
to doctor Hall's research and the book that became a
(23:55):
whole decree about how to keep revolting enslave people in
line quote unquote and had a specific punishment for them,
and that was the beginning of prosecuting insurrectionists as they
called them. Yeah, And then to go back to your point,
(24:23):
there is a pretty upsetting and moving scene where doctor
Hall is teaching. She's recommending Beloved Tony Morrison's Beloved, and
one of the students comes up to her afterwards it's like,
I already read it, Can I please not read it again?
Like it was great, I'm glad I read it, but
it's very difficult read. And later doctor Hall is at
(24:47):
her home and kind of looking at her young son
and thinking, like having this really emotional moment of I can't.
She's struggling to come to turn with wanting a child,
thinking it would be better for a child to be
dead rather than be living slaves. Right because of the book,
(25:08):
And that's just another example of that trauma, that racial trauma,
intergenerational trauma, and the things that she in her own
professional and personal life. It has to deal with, right. Yeah,
And along with that, they do talk about those who
are raped by the plantation owners and the colonizers. I'm
(25:30):
gonna call him colonizer because I don't want to calm
anything else at that point in time, and how they
did not want to bring that to life essentially, which
was done out of hate and anger and like like
abuse in ownership in all of these things as a
way of power to control power over women. They've been
talked about the specific woman who was a leader of
(25:51):
the area and how they send homage to her and
revolted in her name because what they did to her,
they pretty much worked her to death, as the phrase
which is seen often in that conversation, and how she
had been someone that had saved so many of the
unsaved people at that point in time, and how they
all did it in her name. And then one of
(26:12):
the things that she helped with was trying to get
rid of unwanted pregnancies by rape and sexual assault, which
was all too common. Yeah, And that is something that
was present in a lot of the in this book,
was black women honoring and supporting other black women coming together,
(26:33):
coming together for these revolts are coming together for something
like that, and then you get to see it on
a really personal level when there's almost this like memory
of doctor Hall reaching out to the memory of her
grandmother about surviving enslavement. And it's a really beautiful like
back and forth that they have where doctor Hall is
just trying to understand her grandmother and what happened to
(26:56):
her and her life and make it relate to what
she's going through and what she's trying to do in
these stories she's trying to tell. It's very very moving
moving scene, right. She uses her as a guidance, and
I loved every bit of that, like praying for her
grandmother's spirit to guide her to these truths because she
(27:19):
was having so many roadblocks, but knowing that this is
something that she was supposed to do, that this is
something that's been calling to her, that all the rejection
and that all the racism that she had dealt with
in our path while it came to teaching, and all
the pushbacks while she was researching, that it was for
a purpose, and that her grandmother, who who was finally
(27:40):
freed through all that inslatement and was the major patriarch
and push for not for only for her the family,
but her father specifically, and there's a beautiful exchange where
we see a flashback between her father and his mother
and his father and how they really grew. I think
they were part of the big Great migration because they
(28:02):
had been threatened bodily harm and then constantly taken after
They were talking about having to deal with the clue
Klux Klan by one of the great grandfathers and how
he dealt with it and what that looked like and
really trying to start over, unfortunately doing what they had
to do in order to survive, but still having the
spirit of the grandmother who really kept that family alive
(28:26):
with her hope and her obviously power and constant work
to provide for her family. But it was a beautiful exchange,
and in this conversation of all the darkness of light
growing out of that darkness, Yeah, it really was. And
(28:47):
then the book does a really excellent job of just
pointing out all of these things and how they are
still in present in our society today. So it ties
it together with current police violence against the black population,
just like all these current issues that are from that
(29:11):
we can't like erase as much as people try to.
The history of that like it's still here. It's we're
still feeling all of these impacts, and black people especially
are still feeling all of these impacts. So it's a
really good like tying together of why it matters that
she wrote this, that she did this research on all
of that, and that we all know it and how
(29:33):
it is still here hasn't gone away. Yeah, and obviously
with things like her book that again kept getting suppressed
on social media. As today we've talked about the conservative
pushback to learn these truths because people are afraid of
(29:53):
what they will look like, and which is exactly what
we talked about why people are blocking archival things because
I don't want to be responsible or they don't even
want to be shown to be even associated with that light.
Which I found it interesting because I had a moment
of thinking about what happened with the Nazis and the
Holocaust and how Germany's response, and we've talked about this
(30:14):
before was completely different. Of course, there's still people who
want to try to deny it and hide things, but
the information is a little more scene, and that's an
interesting look at what has happened when things can actually
be learned well hopefully people don't make the same mistakes
again or watch out for warning signs, and what happens
(30:34):
when we try to ignore history. And I find that
interesting that we know so much less of something that
was so prevalent, not even that long ago, that that
happened to so many groups of people across the world.
And this is unfortunate that she had so many roadblocks
that she can't even give it the proper credit in names,
(30:56):
but has to fill in the stories with some of
the fact that she got which are amazing, and the
art is amazing. It really just brings it to life
in a way in a different perspective. But again that
the fact that we have to struggle to get to
these points, and we've talked about it before, how little
history that we know of those marginalized communities, and how
(31:16):
often they do try to hide it. And hopefully we
will get more and more people who do do the
hard work like this, and we are so grateful for that.
We would continue to make sure it is being spread
that so it won't die out. Absolutely, Yeah, I can't
recommend it enough obviously, Like the questions in the back
are really great to her answers to the questions in
(31:38):
the back really good the audio that Samantha is mentioning,
So there's a lot of stuff here to like really
paint a full picture of what all of the difficulties
of this getting made. But it's so important and it's
so well done. So can't recommend enough. Go check it out,
Go buy copies, do it now? Yes, yes, yes, yes um.
(32:00):
In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for what
are next book called pick should be, you can emails
at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at Momstup podcast, or on
Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We're
also on YouTube now if you want to check it
out that way. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina.
Thank you, Christina, and thanks to you for listening Stuff
(32:21):
and Never Told You protection of iHeartRadio. For more podcast
from my Heart Radio, you can check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane
Never Told Your Protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to another
edition of a book Club. Content warning before we get
into this one, we are going to be talking about
(00:26):
intergenerational racial trauma, slavery, death, sexual assaults. They're all like
heavy topics, so it's not that we're going to get
into them too much, but they're like still really heavy topic, right,
So take care of yourself, do what you need to do.
Today we are discussing the beautifully illustrated and written graphic
(00:46):
novel and memoir Wake The Hidden History of Women led
Slave Revolts, written by doctor Rebecca Hall and illustrated by
Hugo Martinez, and it depicts the difficult journey doctor Hall,
a former attorney and part time teacher an historian, embarked
upon to dig up the lost and rased histories of
slave revolts in the US led by black enslaved women.
(01:09):
It primarily focuses on revolts near New York, although there's
a bunch of other things going on as well. A
New York constructor Hall's hometown, so she was curious about it.
Are also slave revolts on ships, and it is interwoven
with how systemic racism that this country was built upon
obstructed her research all along the way, and how it
(01:31):
impacts her daily life personally and professionally, especially given that
her paternal grandparents were both born enslaved, And just as
she interacts with the lives of people she's teaching or
has taught, she delves into court documents, the logs of
ships carrying enslaved people, old letters, forensic evidence from bones,
(01:52):
and so many other things to track down these rased stories.
And it's a really, really great depiction of this struggle
of a researcher and her storian to find these stories.
Doctor Hall is an activist, educator, and scholar. She has
a history serving as an attorney, yes for low income
tenants and those without homes. She is a writer and
(02:15):
a publisher, especially on topics of race and gender. And
the tag gun is the past is gone, but we
still live in its wake. And the title actually works
on a bunch of different levels, which is cool. The
art is very, very striking. It's beautifully done in shades
of black. It's just it's kind of hard to describe,
(02:35):
but just very very good. It's very beautiful and just
draws you in. Right. If you actually go and follow
doctor Rebecca Hall's Twitter, you can see examples from Hugo
Martinez's drawing and you'll see what it could be like.
I think she does have some excerpts in her Twitter
because the whole other thing Twitter try to suppress her
(02:55):
book as well, and it did the opposite, which is
amazing and I'm glad for because that's how we found it.
But yeah, if he wanted to see an example without
buying the book, you should buy the book. But it
is an amazing depiction, and he does an amazing job
in really showing the depth and the strength within these
horrific conversations and tails, and he does it in a
(03:16):
way that's not sadistic. I guess is the best word,
which can happen pretty quickly in a story like that,
which is honest and true. He really makes sure to
exemplify the strengths of the enslaved people rather than showing
like the disgusting disasters and all of the horrifying acts
(03:37):
or horrifying things of what's happening against them, of abuse
and the assaulted murder that is talked about, rather than
anything else but yeah, it's a really great illustration, and
I think he does a great job in making sure
that what her words, her profound words, and her words
of a lot of depth and feeling that it's translated
on these pages. Yeah, and it was interesting. I read
(03:59):
a bunch of like interviews and articles about it and
about how this was a difficult project for a lot
of reasons, but one of them is, you know, how
do you capture kind of the pain of like being
this researcher and going through this and it's not like
a typical quote like graphic novel type thing, Like it's
you know, you go to a library and you're doing
(04:20):
this research and things like that. So it was very,
very interesting, but yeah, okay, very Basically, the plot follows
doctor Hall's decision to dig into justice and the history
of black women and deciding to pursue all the stories
she could find about black women led slave revolts, and
it begins with her working as an attorney, questioning what
(04:40):
justice means in systems that are inherently racist and sexist,
kind of seeing it play out over and over again.
So she decides to work on a dissertation of women
led slave results, particularly in nearby New York. But in
search of documentation and evidence, she keeps running into scraps
and dead ends, and she is determined to tell all
these hidden stories and is relentless. But this is all
(05:04):
happening while she is dealing with the fallout of slavery
and racism in doing this research, whether it's officials barring
her from accessing records for BS reasons, or confronting the
legacy of enslavement and racism in terms of her students
and her child, her own family, all of those things.
So definitely check it out. It's a it's not a
(05:26):
long read. I won't say it's like easy read, because
obviously it's very painful material, but it's like so powerful
and you should read it right, So we can say
it it's a short ready, but it doesn't have to
be if you're really focusing on the arts and the
graphics that bring out the story. As a plus, I
(05:48):
did listen to the audio version mistakenly thinking that that
was the actual book, but it's in a fantastic add on.
I believe they describe it it's the extended story, as
the story of the story as really about how it
came out and it's a full cast and it has
a lot of it's it's a full live cast, reading
as if you're there, and it's a play. You know,
(06:09):
we've done this often a fiction fiction type of audio,
and he does it with her fiction of the month,
But this is not exactly fiction. It is her adventure
in getting these So we don't see the results necessarily
of what we see here some of the things that
she was able to find finally, But what we do
(06:30):
is hear her struggle in her her journey into getting
to this point and releasing and writing this novel. So
it's a fantastic hearing. If you get a chance to
listen to it, you really really really really should because
it's a whole different experience for the same theme and
wonderful take that she has placed on it. Wait acting
(06:50):
because apparently they wanted like they're nominated for and I'm
gonna call it Audie Awards A U. D I E.
S Well, they're a finalist for the Audience twenty twenty
three award. It's a very cool. It's definitely well worth
the listen. It's nothing else to hear. What she went
through is amazing, m and it's kind of you know,
I gave the like plot rundown. It's kind of hard
(07:10):
to describe though, but essentially you're kind of you're getting
her version of like her researching these stories, and then
we get snippets of those stories, so it's sort of
juxtaposed against each other. So some themes I would say,
(07:38):
like at the beginning, you know, you see her working
as an attorney and having this question of like what
is justice in this white supremacist, sexist, racist society when
she's seeing like these outcomes over and over again, and
as I said, like she was an attorney for like
low income tenants, and so she's just kind of seeing
this over and over, kind of hearing this really racist
(08:02):
you know, advice of like well you have to kind
of behave in a certain ways so they don't think
you're the angry black woman in court and all of
those things, and having a lot of questions like well
what does this mean? Right? I think it's very interesting,
and I know there's something that I really touched in
(08:23):
with her. She was talking about the fact that yes,
immediately they didn't assume that she was a lawyer, that
she was one of the plaintiffs or the defendants, and
having to be like, I'm the representative, they are pleased,
let me buy, having to prove herself as the educated
person who with the law degree, unlike many of the
clerks or any of them in there, or the deputies,
(08:45):
but then also having to give advice and seeing the
bias within course. And I've talked about those many times
on Mike about my own experiences being in the courtroom
and talking to children and talking to about who they
were and how things will play out. And she talked
to one black woman who is one of her clients,
but she also has a white woman that lived in
(09:05):
the same building and had the same lawsuit. The white
woman got all this money and a black plaintiff. In
the audio, so I'm gonna say this in the audio,
the black woman was like, I feel like this is
good for me, this is amazing, Like they've already said
a precedent. And she's like, well, if you want to
get what she got, you're gonna have to do exactly
what she did, which is the white woman tears, pronouncing everything,
(09:27):
unusually being very quiet and polite in all these things. Well,
she probably would have been already, but like making it
be like be white though, and when she when the
woman came to in front of this, she got half
the amount that the white woman did. And that's how
it goes. And then having the regret of telling this
woman her client be white, be more white, be this,
(09:48):
because this is how the justice system works. And I've
had this moment where I've told young black kids, Hey,
I hate to tell you this, and this is gonna
be the gods on his truth. And I don't want hate.
I don't look at this, but because this system is
already set up to have you fail, they have already
had bias against you. It doesn't matter before you walked in,
whether it's for whatever want not this specific group of people.
(10:11):
And there were specific people that I would have to
look out for for certain types of lawyers, certain types
of judges, and who was going to do what and
who had the racial bias and trying to teach the
kid to play the game instead of trying to change
the system. And I know that's kind of the beginning
of why she starts really going into teaching and then
really going into research. And I hate that too, that
I hate that I was a part of that. And
it's a non black person. It's even worse coming from me,
(10:33):
and I hate that I was a part of that system,
but doing what I could do at that moment. And
she talks about that, having that guilt and playing into
the system and then coming out of it and trying
to break that system. And then, of course this is
a whole different conversation, but it hit me real hard
when she was talking about this and knowing exactly what
she meant. And of course I feel like my guilt
(10:56):
is definitely different and my result was different, and that
in the seeing that at how ugly a gross it
really is. Yeah, Yeah, And we do see doctor Hall
kind of grappling with that throughout it, even in her
teaching and her research all that stuff. And so she's
(11:16):
seeing this as an attorney, decides to get her dissertation,
decides to focus on slave revolts led by black women,
and there's a quote in there about kind of being
haunted by the legacy of slavery. Quote, sometimes when you
think you're hunting down the past, the past is hunting you.
(11:37):
I was born to tell the stories. So she does
describe that. She does describe this feeling of like I
need to find these stories that have been erased and
I need to tell them and they are a part
of my life and my history and the history that's
shaping all of this. And it, like I said, it
(11:58):
is a really really excellent depiction of what it's like
doing historical research. This is like, you know, we've researched
for this show, but nowhere near this level. Right, So
this is from articles I've read from historians about it,
saying that this is a very excellent depiction of what
it's like to do historical research. And that did set
(12:19):
apart from most graphic novels. Like I said, it was
kind of a new take on this idea, and that's
one of the reasons she talks about, which she also
at the back of the at least the copy I had,
there was a Q and A with her and she
was describing why she decided to do a graphic novel,
and that was one of the reasons, was like, this
will be a new way to really showcase illustrate what
(12:43):
it's like to be a historian doing this stuff, right,
especially when it comes to the limited amount and we're
going to talk more about this, especially when it comes
to the limited amount of information, the amount of information
that was a race and the amount of information people
want to hide, like the like the odds are stacked
against her for so many reasons, and her traveling all
(13:03):
over the world she really does trying to get this
and hunt down this information. Uh sounds exhausting but inspiring.
Real exhausting, exhausting. Yes, honestly, I was like, this feels like, um,
I do love those scenes in movies where they're doing
the montage and they're like, I gotta go here, I
gotta go here, I gotta go here. It was like that, like,
I feel like they should make a show about how
(13:24):
she did this. Yeah, she's done the audio and it's
time for a show. Now, I agree, I agree, But yeah,
it's it showcases like the traveling of information, because this
is she's looking at you know, before the internet obviously,
but so like on boats or like where did this
information end up after it was on this boat? The
(13:47):
thought process of like, well, this piece of information is missing,
where could it be? Like all of those things, um,
and then yeah, this real pain and frustration of the
research of finding something like a total dead end or
something completely erased and like you'll never know, you'll never
know what happened. So it was it excellently depicted that.
(14:10):
And then there was also just the obviously like the
history of slavery and seeing the aftermath of slavery everywhere,
and that goes back to yes, this pain of the
loss of history, of a rasure of the question of
what gets recorded. And so for instance, like one of
the first things she does is she finds like these names,
(14:31):
and she finds very brief snippets about them, is trying
to piece together their story, and then in the end
it's just a race. Then she can't find it. And
the quote, here's a quote, I can't find her. I'll
never know what happened to Sarah or Abigail, right, and
this one specifically to a revolt that happened on the
(14:54):
state grounds, because we do talk a lot more about
ships and the travel when they're see but in the
transatlantic slave trade, but where they were talking specifically about
a couple of herbles that have happened where they did
sentence people to death in slave people's to death and
(15:14):
or jailed, and this conversation about how it got lost
and she was trying to find out what happened to
these women who were the ones because they just became
numbers essentially, and the pain of them just being numbered
and being property in itself is horrendous. And also knowing
and we're gonna talk about this is like her family,
immediate family members essentially had experienced something to this and
that that was not too far from her generationally, But
(15:36):
like in the conversation that she was trying to discover
who did this, who was this? Who who did this?
And having a few names to the many that died,
and then not even having the correct names and not
even being able to like finding some information just enough
that you know partially what happened, but not the ending
and the trauma of not being able to have resolved
(15:57):
in something that heartbreaking and something that is so triggering
in itself that that she had to go on this
journey without any resolution, right. And that's another thing that
I thought this book did an excellent job at is
really showing the physical impact of researching something so horrendous,
of researching something that directly impacts you, that is in
(16:19):
your family, of like she experiences nausea, She just talks
about like pain in her body and being so exhausted
and her mental health and having these questions and like
these physical things that are happening to her because of
this research she is doing, which I think is really
(16:40):
important to recognize. And then there's also several instances of
her trying to do this research very like legitimately doing
nothing wrong, but these white officials blocking access to documents.
So we see it in the United States when I
(17:01):
believe it's like an archive she's trying to go to
and they're like, no, no, no, you didn't go through
the right procedures. We can't let you in. And she's like,
but I kind of did, and also have a flatland.
They're like no, no, no, no way. And then she
does travel to the United Kingdom and it's like, you know,
trying to get some documents from museum, and the officials,
(17:26):
the white officials, they're very like, oh no, we don't
have any. We were good at abolition, don't you remember,
very very defensive. And then she goes to visit Lloyd's
of London and try to get their archives. And Lloyd's
of Blunton got started insuring slave ships and still around right,
and you know, just they just flat out refused, and
(17:51):
she told them what she was doing, and here's why
all this, like it's totally legitimate, They had no reason
not to let her get that information that they absolutely refuse.
So this is another thing she's constantly fighting with to
get to these stories, of which many of them she
might finally get that information, and it's just not there
(18:12):
right And that's I think that's part of the reason,
and I know she talks about this, is that the
focus is partially on her trying to get this research
is because of the way she was railroaded, essentially by
white people who may even claim to be allies. Like
she talks about how again she comes to the UK
and she's like, everybody's so nice in comparison to what
happened in the US, but the black community in the
(18:34):
UK or like they're just being nice to you because
you know you're they're trying to play nice while you're here,
because you're a visitor essentially, and that it is not
that wonderful as they would want it to be, and
it make it seem and we've talked about bad the
different biases that happen in different areas and regions, and
just because it seems nice doesn't mean that's the truth
of it all. Just because there may not be a
(18:55):
focus on some of the things that happen in other
places doesn't mean that discrimination and race isn't there. But
I really do think it's interesting that we talk about
people who make money, which insurance companies have definitely been
reamed over the cold as they should be continuously, because
it is an ugly, ugly trade in business, and it's
fairly racist and discriminatory today. So knowing that that they're
trying to hide some of that history that absolutely was
(19:18):
making money off of the backs of enslaved people and
their deaths and their demise and their murder, all of that,
and their profiting and the white people who profited off
of that. It's a horrendous and ugly business, which to
a certain degree they still do that today. That's a
whole different conversation. Don't get me started, because you know
(19:38):
I will, But that what we see in her conversation
is that it's so hard to even get past those
blocks that has already been set up by white supremacy
from way back when, from the beginning, essentially for her
to find information, there hasn't been much progress and breaking
down the white supremacy to tell the truth about the
(19:58):
enslaved people and the bolts that happened, right, And on
top of that, another thing that she touches on is
these myths around, like you know, enslaved people didn't resist.
Are other stories that are basically just deflecting the blame
from anywhere where it should be, which was the white
(20:19):
slavers and people propping it up. But that being so important,
It's like this clarity when telling the story of enslavement
and why it was one of the one of the
reasons why she wanted to do it even though it
was so painful, when it was so difficult, and there
are all these things in her way, and she did
find some facts that sort of we're telling her like, oh, yes,
(20:42):
I knew I was onto something. One of them is
one and ten ships of enslaved people experienced a revolt,
and here's a quote. The more women on board of
slave ship, the more likely a revolt. So again, where
is that history. She's like, found this, but there's no
the stories are there. And one of the reasons that
(21:03):
she and others think that this is is in part
because of gendered stereotypes that women aren't a threat, so
they were forced to stay on deck near weapons and
also where they could be sexually abused, but this allowed
this was the way that they could lead these revolts, right,
And she talks about the fact that many of times
(21:24):
that the white slave version, those on the board on
ships really were naive, thinking that women wouldn't do anything,
and so therefore they just really let them be. Of course,
I talk about the horrendousness of the activities that happened
on board when they were released and why it was
so horrific, and of course that that to me is
(21:46):
like that, Yeah. A lot of the conversation that she
has in the Bugs is that many of the enslaved
at that time would rather die than go into this
horrific situation that they know is even more awful than
could be told, and that that that that there was
no other options, knowing that in the sea they would die,
(22:08):
but that would be much better than what they would
have to suffer in the mainland and then in the
colonies at that time. And we saw that during the
revolts in many of things that they talk about Indian
sam and Um the unknown woman in the beginning of
the book, which one of the big revolts, and they
talked about how she could not find this woman and
(22:30):
who she was or where she came from, but both
were prosecuted because she had gone and her and m Sam,
who I believe was a native person who was enslaved
as well, that they would rather die than continue the
way they had, and they they took out the entire
(22:50):
family because they knew if one one was alive that
they would still be under ownership and would still be
horrifically abused and enslaved. So all had to go, and
it was an interesting In my audio version, they do
have an enacted They enact the whole story, and it's
interesting how they hear and what they even bring the
children of the white plantation owners. They have that as
(23:14):
a part of the conversation and then have the conversation
between them about why this is so important. We also
find the gendered prosecution. Essentially, the woman is burned at
the stake while the man was hung, and it was
during that time that this had been where the women
were under property, whether they are white or of a
(23:34):
different race, they were under the property of their husband
as well, so therefore as property, this was treason to
go at. Instead of just murder, it was treason. So
they had a different type of punishment, which I found
interesting as well. And apparently this was the revolt, according
to doctor Hall's research and the book that became a
(23:55):
whole decree about how to keep revolting enslave people in
line quote unquote and had a specific punishment for them,
and that was the beginning of prosecuting insurrectionists as they
called them. Yeah, And then to go back to your point,
(24:23):
there is a pretty upsetting and moving scene where doctor
Hall is teaching. She's recommending Beloved Tony Morrison's Beloved, and
one of the students comes up to her afterwards it's like,
I already read it, Can I please not read it again?
Like it was great, I'm glad I read it, but
it's very difficult read. And later doctor Hall is at
(24:47):
her home and kind of looking at her young son
and thinking, like having this really emotional moment of I can't.
She's struggling to come to turn with wanting a child,
thinking it would be better for a child to be
dead rather than be living slaves. Right because of the book,
(25:08):
And that's just another example of that trauma, that racial trauma,
intergenerational trauma, and the things that she in her own
professional and personal life. It has to deal with, right. Yeah,
And along with that, they do talk about those who
are raped by the plantation owners and the colonizers. I'm
(25:30):
gonna call him colonizer because I don't want to calm
anything else at that point in time, and how they
did not want to bring that to life essentially, which
was done out of hate and anger and like like
abuse in ownership in all of these things as a
way of power to control power over women. They've been
talked about the specific woman who was a leader of
(25:51):
the area and how they send homage to her and
revolted in her name because what they did to her,
they pretty much worked her to death, as the phrase
which is seen often in that conversation, and how she
had been someone that had saved so many of the
unsaved people at that point in time, and how they
all did it in her name. And then one of
(26:12):
the things that she helped with was trying to get
rid of unwanted pregnancies by rape and sexual assault, which
was all too common. Yeah, And that is something that
was present in a lot of the in this book,
was black women honoring and supporting other black women coming together,
(26:33):
coming together for these revolts are coming together for something
like that, and then you get to see it on
a really personal level when there's almost this like memory
of doctor Hall reaching out to the memory of her
grandmother about surviving enslavement. And it's a really beautiful like
back and forth that they have where doctor Hall is
just trying to understand her grandmother and what happened to
(26:56):
her and her life and make it relate to what
she's going through and what she's trying to do in
these stories she's trying to tell. It's very very moving
moving scene, right. She uses her as a guidance, and
I loved every bit of that, like praying for her
grandmother's spirit to guide her to these truths because she
(27:19):
was having so many roadblocks, but knowing that this is
something that she was supposed to do, that this is
something that's been calling to her, that all the rejection
and that all the racism that she had dealt with
in our path while it came to teaching, and all
the pushbacks while she was researching, that it was for
a purpose, and that her grandmother, who who was finally
(27:40):
freed through all that inslatement and was the major patriarch
and push for not for only for her the family,
but her father specifically, and there's a beautiful exchange where
we see a flashback between her father and his mother
and his father and how they really grew. I think
they were part of the big Great migration because they
(28:02):
had been threatened bodily harm and then constantly taken after
They were talking about having to deal with the clue
Klux Klan by one of the great grandfathers and how
he dealt with it and what that looked like and
really trying to start over, unfortunately doing what they had
to do in order to survive, but still having the
spirit of the grandmother who really kept that family alive
(28:26):
with her hope and her obviously power and constant work
to provide for her family. But it was a beautiful exchange,
and in this conversation of all the darkness of light
growing out of that darkness, Yeah, it really was. And
(28:47):
then the book does a really excellent job of just
pointing out all of these things and how they are
still in present in our society today. So it ties
it together with current police violence against the black population,
just like all these current issues that are from that
(29:11):
we can't like erase as much as people try to.
The history of that like it's still here. It's we're
still feeling all of these impacts, and black people especially
are still feeling all of these impacts. So it's a
really good like tying together of why it matters that
she wrote this, that she did this research on all
of that, and that we all know it and how
(29:33):
it is still here hasn't gone away. Yeah, and obviously
with things like her book that again kept getting suppressed
on social media. As today we've talked about the conservative
pushback to learn these truths because people are afraid of
(29:53):
what they will look like, and which is exactly what
we talked about why people are blocking archival things because
I don't want to be responsible or they don't even
want to be shown to be even associated with that light.
Which I found it interesting because I had a moment
of thinking about what happened with the Nazis and the
Holocaust and how Germany's response, and we've talked about this
(30:14):
before was completely different. Of course, there's still people who
want to try to deny it and hide things, but
the information is a little more scene, and that's an
interesting look at what has happened when things can actually
be learned well hopefully people don't make the same mistakes
again or watch out for warning signs, and what happens
(30:34):
when we try to ignore history. And I find that
interesting that we know so much less of something that
was so prevalent, not even that long ago, that that
happened to so many groups of people across the world.
And this is unfortunate that she had so many roadblocks
that she can't even give it the proper credit in names,
(30:56):
but has to fill in the stories with some of
the fact that she got which are amazing, and the
art is amazing. It really just brings it to life
in a way in a different perspective. But again that
the fact that we have to struggle to get to
these points, and we've talked about it before, how little
history that we know of those marginalized communities, and how
(31:16):
often they do try to hide it. And hopefully we
will get more and more people who do do the
hard work like this, and we are so grateful for that.
We would continue to make sure it is being spread
that so it won't die out. Absolutely, Yeah, I can't
recommend it enough obviously, Like the questions in the back
are really great to her answers to the questions in
(31:38):
the back really good the audio that Samantha is mentioning,
So there's a lot of stuff here to like really
paint a full picture of what all of the difficulties
of this getting made. But it's so important and it's
so well done. So can't recommend enough. Go check it out,
Go buy copies, do it now? Yes, yes, yes, yes um.
(32:00):
In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for what
are next book called pick should be, you can emails
at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at Momstup podcast, or on
Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We're
also on YouTube now if you want to check it
out that way. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina.
Thank you, Christina, and thanks to you for listening Stuff
(32:21):
and Never Told You protection of iHeartRadio. For more podcast
from my Heart Radio, you can check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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