The book starts with Ben scrolling through news of Philando Castile's murder and the ensuing protests. When his father gets home and asks if Ben's going to go out to join them, Ben declines and rattles off a string of excuses. After failing to convince Ben with arguments, Ben's father clocks him into the past to visit many significant events of Black resistance throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. But probably not the ones you expect. The ones that get repeated most often.... Rosa Parks and Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington, the formation of the Black Panther Party... They all get mentioned but that's not the focus. Ben meets the likes of Robert Charles, Imari Obadele, Herman Ferguson, Audly Moore, Assata Shakur... Probably the most widely-known event depicted is probably the MOVE bombing (which I daresay most of you are unfamiliar with -- go look it up). Emmett Till's funeral is also shown, but mostly only as an excuse to speak to several of the attendees in one place -- we don't even learn it's Till's funeral until the last panel of the scene. (Though if you're familiar at all, you probably guessed the location much earlier.)
Passmore is clearly coming at this with two objectives. First, he's going out of his way to highlight all the people and events that are generally not taught. As he notes towards the end, "The white history of Black liberation di more than lie about us, it confused our actual story. Who was actually essential in our struggle for liberation -- was it the ones white history picked?" Passmore brings those often-supressed names to the fore.
His second objective is to be objective. He doesn't present anyone as a saint. Everyone here is a real person, with both aspirations and limitations. He presents the good and the bad; one of the last figures he highlights is Micah Xavier Johnson. Passmore uses that to showcase some of the confused and often-conflicting messaging people are told about Black resistance.
And what is Black resistance? As Passmore says, "It's about life, and loving it so much you want to fight for it. Your life is worth more than getting blown up by a bomb the police said was just a phone."
I've noted before that I learned the history books were lying to me back in eighth grade, and I've spent much of my life since high school un-learning all the bullshit I was taught and catching up on all the things that were skipped over. It sounds like Passmore learned a similar lesson in school and has spent much of his adult life expressly studying Black history in America. That shows through very clearly here, as do his storytelling abilities. He lays out everything in a relatively easy-to-understand manner ("relatively" because he tackles some really complex characters and events) and the book is packed with information. Particularly if you think "Black resistance" starts and ends with Huey P. Newton.
I highly recommend this to everyone, and I'll be upset if this doesn't win him another Eisner Award this year. The book came out back in October so it's very eligible. It was published by Pantheon Books and should be available through your favorite bookshop. It retails for $22.00 US.
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