Introduction
In Wake, historian Rebecca Hall and illustrator Hugo Martinez together tell the stories of Black women, whose names were forgotten and buried in history. In the following analysis, I will look at the visual art and written language of this graphic novel to analyze ways in which Hall explores and uncovers the history of her ancestors through the constant intertwining of past, present and future histories of women warriors that teaches us the way towards a hopeful Black liberation reality.
Living in the wake of slavery: Unburying and rewriting gaps in history
In this novel, Rebecca Hall recounts her autobiographical journey to try to find the buried voices of her ancestors: strong Black women who fought against the injustices of society, an image that is commonly overshadowed by this belief that Black women and men passively accepted the suffering as part of their race and gender. She realizes that the “History written by the victors always erases resistance… But we always resisted slavery. Our constant resistance was central to bringing about slavery’s end.” (27). As a historian she goes on this journey of uncovering the truths of black history and specifically the leadership and strength of her black women ancestors and complete the gaps in history with historical reimagining and retelling.
As activist Lorde puts, “where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives” (68), with this novel, Hall is deciding that the voices of her female ancestors are no longer going to be buried. She not only writes these gaps in history but, with the help of Martinez, she projects them, giving these women a body, face, names and a space for their voices. Hall recognizes that the erasure of her people started a long time ago, when “what [black women] had to say was not even considered important to record” (33), as she could not find enough information about the four black women who revolted in 1712 and were trialed. There are no records on what these women said, and this lack of history makes her realize she has to “tell their story, using everything [she] knows to be true about their lives, and add the parts we don’t know but could be true” (Hall 35). Other historians, such as, Hine and Thompson also recognize that “Much of the history of Black women was lost forever because it was considered by almost everyone to be unimportant, but a great deal still remains and is being brough to light” (9). In their book they bring together many records of Black women in American history, giving each of them a voice and space because they consider it to be an essential part of our understanding of modern racist and oppressive systems. Works such as this one and Rebecca Hall’s are an act of anti-oppressive radical tactic, because in bringing light to these histories we are recognizing the resilience and strength of our ancestors and using this strength to keep fighting against the injustices. Hall feels haunted by these stories (pg. 78-79), but they are also the stories that come to wake her up (pg. 9), her ancestors are there to wake her up and give her strength to continue her journey to uncover this history. It is in visualizing women warriors fighting fiercely and organizing revolts, such as the story of Sarah, Abigail, Lily and Amba (pg. 59), or how an enslaved woman decided to kill her enslaver and was burned at the stake (pg. 92-93), and seeing Ahosi women in slave ship leading revolts (pg. 6-7) that we can find strength and hope for the future.
Hall’s grandmother, Nana Harriet, is also an important figure in this book. She is the hope, the strength, and motivation for Rebecca Hall. Her grandmother “survived, and even thrived, though [she was] born a slave. …I have to believe if they could survive that, we can survive today” (Hall 111). Her grandmother gives her strength, her ancestor is a reminder of the resilience black women poses because “Surviving itself was a form of resistance. And resistance was crucial to the survival of the spirit” (Hine & Thompson 99). She honours her grandmother and in doing so she interviewees the past, present and future black woman warrior that forms from the smoke of the candle in her grandmother’s offering (pg. 112), this is a symbol of strength and hope. Warriors like Nana Harriet “turned survival into an art and a form of resistance to oppression. This is where we really begin to learn from the women of black America” (Hine & Thompson 75) and start looking forward.
Slave ship revolts are the main element in this graphic novel. We see the cyclical theme in how the novel starts and finishes with the image of the Ahosi warrior fighting. Revolts are the ultimate radical and anti-oppressive tactic used by enslaved warriors to fight against injustices, as “revolts on slave ships in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean were basically suicide missions. Nonetheless, many captives chose death over their exceptionally horrid new kind of slavery” (Hall 148), and their deaths served to slow down the trade of slaves, saving thousands of lives. Some historians point out that “The more women onboard a slave ship, the more likely a revolt” (Hall 149), and yet the leadership of black women is constantly hidden and overshadowed. History shows that “keeping women accessible provided a “benefit” to the crew, of course, rape and sexual violence are a tool for domination and control, certainly no less fierce than the shackle or the cat-o-nine-tails” (Hall 156). Women not only had to resist enslavement, “enslaved women resisted this sexual exploitation, sometimes fiercely. But their resistance has seldom been recognized for what it was – resistance to the concept of ownership itself” (Hine & Thompson 102). It is the prejudice of the female body, as fragile and unable to defend itself, it is in this ignorance that revolts were possible, as black women were left unchained on the deck, giving them access to weapons. And yet, revolt after revolt, white men were still unable to see the power of black women. We see this in the overshadowing of black feminists by white feminists, for instance in the #MeToo movements, and the overshadowing of black women in BLM movements, not able to recognize the powerful leadership of black women.
Waking up: Feeling in the present and paving the bright future of Black liberation
Unburying this hidden history is so essential because Hall shows us how the history of her ancestors is plastered everywhere around us as it is visually shown throughout this novel, in every road or building (pg. 17), her ancestor’s bones are coming out of their forgotten graves where colonisers are constantly building on top (pg. 25) in the hopes that people will completely forget them. This is one form of physical and architectural erasure. Modern institutions of power such as banks, the law, police, education and insurance companies for instance are all based slave, colonial and racist capitalism. We can see this in the reflection of the nooses on the police car (pg. 29), for instance. These are systems that oppressed Black people then and continue to do so now. Modern day racism is embedded in Rebecca Hall’s autobiographical microaggression experiences in her career in the justice system (pg. 20), when she is questions and mocked by security officers at different institutions (pg. 98, 131). Waking up to this reality can be uncomfortable. When she drinks tea (pg. 127), she sees the realities of how “England accumulated so much free capital trough [their] labour that if paved the way for England to be the first to industrialize” (Hall 127) and when she walks into a museum of stolen goods and art, she is seeing a crime evidence room (pg. 129). This narrative is meant for us to feel discomfort and realize that the house we live in, the things we own have a painful history. We need to learn how to feel emotions, feel discomfort in order to move forward and encourage transformation and healing.
History can be very easy to manipulate to fit the narrative that those in power want it to fit. Denial is an act of avoidance of emotions and in avoiding emotions we are not allowing ourselves to heal and move forward. “The British would like us to think that their only role in the slave trade was its abolition.” (Hall 132), this denial is what keeps oppressive systems persisting in our society. History also paints an image of Black people as enslaved because that’s their nature, in modern times we have similar narratives of how “people in prison always remain “inmates” or “prisoners”, just as women who experience gender violence are relegated to the status of “victims”” (Davis 34), all these bodies are labelled permanently and they are not seen as survivors and warriors who are able to change their own conditions and ignite transformation. Viewing Black women as objects that fulfill white men’s sexual necessities also stems from the way Black slaves were treated in slave boats (pg. 156). But Rebecca Hall is determined to change this narrative and highlight the powerful and resilient women ancestors who fought.
One of the most important themes highlighted in Hall’s novel is community: “Without community there is no liberation” (Lorde 162). Unity is a powerful and radical tool. “To enslaved Americans, community meant survival – emotional, psychological, and often physical survival” (Hine & Thompson 80). Community is everything we have to hope for a better future. Like Nana Harriet (pg. 115) and other enslaved mothers did in plantation fields, teaching their children that family comes first, and that we help each other “In an America where rugged individualism has always been prized so highly, such impassioned loyalty to a community” (Hine & Thompson 81) is what gave these ancestors strength. Individualism and neo-liberal competition are still dividing us now when we need to be more united than ever.
“The path of healing is the practice of embodiment, to return home to all of our bodies and to do the very hard work of loving the trauma, and in loving it beginning to set it free from our bodies” (Owens 150). Rebecca Hall practices healing when she honours her ancestors, grieves and wakes with them (pg. 111, 191, 195). It is from this grieving that se finds community and strength to move forward. Regardless of all the sadness and anger that she feels, that does not pull her down it moves her forward. It is a reminder that black people are “are powerful because [they] have survived, and that is what it is all about – survival and growth” (Lorde 203). It is the survival and “resistance through impossible odds [that] we empower and bring joy to our present” (Hall 200) and brings hope for the future. It is from letting ourselves feel emotions as a community, that we can understand and reflect. Feeling grief and rage bring strength as the “transhistorical rage is the rage that is gifted from generation to generation rooted at the historical time and place of the first major trauma and the rage that emerged from the impact” (Owens 151). Rage does not always translate to revengeful violence; it is an emotion gifted and used to create transformation and change. Owens says that when he “experiences rage [he] is experiencing the rage of all [his] ancestors” (153). We see this in the tears Hall sheds upon learning about the brutal treatment of her own ancestors. Honoring our ancestors is extremely important as their trauma is what makes us who we are.
Conclusion
An Ahosi warrior jumping from a slave ship revolt is what wakes Rebecca Hall up at the beginning of the book (pg. 9) and it is when the reader finishes the novel that we too, are awaken by all these stories. Both Hall and authors such as Hine and Thompson share the belief that “given the tremendous sufferings of black women, another primary theme [in their book] is triumph” (10) and hope for the future. On page 199 Hall Is looking into a well that looks into a positive future of happy black people and says that “We must live in an alternative Black temporality where we reach into the past to “reimagine a future” otherwise” (Hall 198). We too, have to look inside this well and honor our ancestor and fight for a better future.
References
Davis, Angela Y., et al. Abolition, Feminism, Now. Hamish Hamilton, 2022.
Hall, Rebecca. Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts. SIMON & SCHUSTER, 2022.
Hine, Darlene Clark, and Kathleen Thompson. A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. Broadway Books, 1999.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. Crossing Press, 2007.
Owens, Lama Rod. Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger. North Atlantic Books, 2020.
An Ahosi warrior jumping from a slave ship revolt is what wakes Rebecca Hall up at the beginning of the book (pg. 9) and it is when the reader finishes the novel that we too, are awaken by all these stories. Both Hall and authors such as Hine and Thompson share the belief that “given the tremendous sufferings of black women, another primary theme [in their book] is triumph” (10) and hope for the future. On page 199 Hall Is looking into a well that looks into a positive future of happy black people and says that “We must live in an alternative Black temporality where we reach into the past to “reimagine a future” otherwise” (Hall 198). We too, have to look inside this well and honor our ancestor and fight for a better future.