In the second episode of We’ve Got Issues, Esther and Sarah are joined by Dr Leighan Renaud, Library Supervisor and former PhD student at the University of Leicester. Together they take a closer look at Nat Turner, Kyle Baker’s moving depiction of a real-life slave rebellion. Touching on topics including slavery, terrorism, religion and activism, this episode promises to stir up some interesting conversations.

1:34 – “Decolonising our Curriculum with AKALA” public event hosted by University of Leicester Student’s Union (on 26 February 2018) – but there’s a video of what he talks about here: https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/akala-black-history-month

5:19 - Michael A. Chainy “Slave Memory without Words in Kyle Baker’s Nat Turner” in Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters 36:2 (2013)

8:07 – The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia

This pamphlet was purported to have been dictated to lawyer Thomas R. Gray by Nat Turner himself, shortly before his execution. The Confessions detail the events leading up to the rebellion and the reasons why he decided to take action. The Confessions are also used by Kyle Baker to narrate the graphic novel Nat Turner.

16:37 - The Book of Night Women by Marlon James

Marlon James’s novel follows Lilith, a girl born in slavery, as she navigates the dangerous world around her and encounters those who would change the status quo by any means necessary.

25:22 – Tim Bruno “Nat Turner after 9/11: Kyle Baker’s Nat Turner” in Journal of American Studies 50:4 (2016)

28:02 – M. Chainy as per the article above, the exact quote here is “dignity so strong that it would prefer death to slavery”

32:48 - Truth: Red, White and Black written by Robert Morales and illustrated by Kyle Baker

Inspired by the Tuskagee Syphilis experiments, this seven issue comic book series expanded on the story of the super serum that created Marvel favourite Captain America. In the series a regiment of black soldiers is forcefully experimented on in order to make sure the serum is safe for white consumption. The experiments go horribly wrong and only one soldier is left alive, Isiah Bradley, also known as Truth.

34:21 - Birth of a Nation written by Aaron McGruder and Reginald Hudlin, illustrated by Kyle Baker

This political satire in graphic novel form explores what happens when the predominantly black city of East St. Louis secedes from the Union and becomes a new country following a voting scandal.

39:28 – Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

This non-fiction book is based on Zora Neale Hurston’s interviews with Oluale Kossola, the last living survivor of the Middle Passage. She was unable to find a publisher at the time of writing in 1931 and the book was published in full for the first time earlier this year.

46:38 - Beloved written by Toni Morrison

Episode 2 - Nat Turner

We've Got IssuesBy Sarah StevensApr 13, 2019