The Black Schooner

About this event

From the trio of Rediker, Lester, and Buhle comes another graphic "history from below" about the Amistad rebellion of 1839, when 53 enslaved Africans on the slave ship Amistad slipped out of their restraints & overpowered their enslavers & ship's crew. Sold into slavery in homeland of Sierra Leone & later bound for Puerto Principe, Cuba, from Havana, these Africans, led by the charismatic warrior Cinqué, forced the ship's remaining crew to sail homeward. Divided into 3 parts, The Black Schooner begins with the intense night of the uprising & takes readers on a reconstructed journey: from sailing on the open ocean to a New Haven, Connecticut, jail, where the captured Africans awaited trial for mutiny & murder; to the Supreme courtroom that found that the rebels had been illegally enslaved & would now be free to return to their native land. Through it all, artist David Lester tells their story using striking imagery, showing how they achieved an unexpected & powerful international victory for the abolitionist movement & forced some of the most powerful people in the world to confront the issue of human bondage. Based on Rediker's book The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, The Black Schooner challenges a whitewashed history & instead, puts the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story—where they belong.

For more info about this event, download The Gay Agenda app.