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Warning: reading this book opens you to the hauntings of history.

All of the past is still right here. It echoes in the waters of the ocean, hides in the reflections of puddles, moves right outside the edge of your vision. It's trauma, yes. But also, wrapped inside that trauma is the sustaining power of the ones who fought.

Dr. Hall has devoted her life to history so deep it feels like excavation. She's scraping through mountains of forgotten documents, pushing against the tide of institutional disapproval, to piece together the smallest shards of remaining information. Sometimes all she has is the unspoken, the gaps and absences left by lives that were considered impossible: the women who organized and fought against the people enslaving them.

While I read this book, the world morphed around me. Everything felt more tender, more terrible, and strangely more hopeful than before.

Wake is at once a compelling can't-put-it-down story, a gorgeous piece of art, and a sophisticated historical work. Dr. Hall completely shatters all the myths I was taught about slavery: that it was mostly a southern problem, mostly a rural agricultural industry. She even wades into that old battle, where conservatives claim that Africans 'enslaved themselves' and liberals pitch Africans as helpless victims to white dominance. Hall's explanation is clear, complex, and infinitely more compelling than those old tired narratives.

Dr. Hall's book taught me that every slave revolt was successful. No matter how they ended, every revolt made the system of chattel slavery more expensive, more tenuous, and the work of enslaving others more difficult. This book feels like an offering, a long-delayed act of gratitude to honor the ones who gave their lives in those revolts.

I'm so grateful for the hours and hours Dr. Hall spent in the archives, uncovering these lives. I'm grateful for Hugo Martinez for bringing them to life with this stunning art. This is the living, accessible history we need. Highly recommended to all.