I'm excited to say that Mark Povinelli and I are working with three different Philadelphia-area Quaker meetings to perform readings of our play, *The Return of Benjamin Lay*, Oct. 15, 16, and 17. For more info, including where to RSVP, see the poster below. I hope many of you can join us!

Film screening at NYU on Monday, Sept. 28 at 7:00 pm: *Becoming Benjamin Lay* will be screened in the Espacio de Culturas auditorium, King Juan Carlos Center, 53 S. Washington Square. Please help us spread the word for this free event. Please register here: as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

THE BLACK SCHOONER transports us from the 1839 Amistad rebellion to the resulting trials in New Haven and an unexpected international victory for the abolitionist movement. Join @marcusrediker.bsky.social and David Lester for their event on September 30! buff.ly/uFsn0LF

Exploring the Jagged Edges of History: Graphic Novel 'The Black Schooner' Launch at New Haven Museum

'The Black Schooner' examines the 1839 Amistad Rebellion, from Sierra Leone to the New Haven Trials, and an unexpected abolitionist victory.

buff.ly

Join us for the launch of our new book, *The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel*, Wed., Sept. 30, 6:00 pm, at the New Haven Museum. I will be there in person and co-author David Lester will join remotely. The event is free. Register here: cthumanities.org/event/the-bl...

Delighted to say, our film *Becoming Benjamin Lay* has won the 2026 “Audience Award,” Best Feature-Length Film in the ReelAbilities Film Festival Pittsburgh. www.instagram.com/p/DdebWiuDMKm/

My blurb for Chloe Ireton’s new book, forthcoming from Hurst in November: “Chloe Ireton has brought to vivid life a love story in *Plotting for Freedom* and thereby made a unique, moving, deeply human, and sure to be lasting contribution to Atlantic history.” hurstpublishers.com/book/plottin...

My blurb: “Graham Hodges has made a lifetime of major contributions to the study of American slavery and abolition. His biography of Henry Highland Garnet is a triumph -- a deeply-researched and altogether brilliant portrait.” yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Happy to say that my book *Freedom Ship* will be published in Italian as *Fugitives: The Secret Routes to Freedom* by Elèuthera Edizioni, based in Milan. This is the second translation to appear so far, the other in German, with a third coming in Spanish. www.eleuthera.it/scheda_libro...

🗣️ Mark your calendars, New Haven! The New Haven Museum is hosting @marcusrediker.bsky.social and David Lester’s launch for their graphic novel, THE BLACK SCHOONER, on September 30 at 4PM! The program is free and offered as a Connecticut Freedom Trail Month activity. buff.ly/p8TswDq

Exploring the Jagged Edges of History: Graphic Novel 'The Black Schooner' Launch at New Haven Museum

'The Black Schooner' examines the 1839 Amistad Rebellion, from Sierra Leone to the New Haven Trials, and an unexpected abolitionist victory.

patch.com

Honored that my book *Freedom Ship* has been named a finalist for this year's #Slaveryarchive Book Prize.

#Slaveryarchive Digital Initiative@slaveryarchive.bsky.social · 2w ago

Meet the finalists of the #Slaveryarchive Book Prize 2025. The winner will be announced by mid-October 2026 www.slaveryarchive.com/book-prize/s...

Penn was a good place to study while I was there, from 1976-1982: Dell Hymes and William Labov (linguistics), Arjun Appadurai and Anthony Wallace (anthropology), and Erving Goffman (sociology). I learned the most from a historian of great and unruly brilliance, early Americanist Michael Zuckerman.

When I arrived at Penn for graduate study 50 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. No one in my family had ever gone to college, much less grad school. As Malcom X said, you could have hung a placard around my neck that said “hick” and it couldn’t have been any more obvious.

Fifty years ago this month I went to Penn for graduate study: Early American/Caribbean slavery with Richard S. Dunn. I began to study sailors and pirates and eventually wrote what would become my first book, *Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea* (1987). I returned to slavery in subsequent books.

Many years ago, when I was in graduate student at Penn, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz invited me to come work with him as one-year fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. I was forced to decline, but I have always wondered what would have happened had I gone.

Film screening in NYC: We will show *Becoming Benjamin Lay* at New York University on Monday, Sept. 28 at 7:00 pm in the Espacio de Culturas auditorium, King Juan Carlos Center, 53 S. Washington Square. The event is free but please register by the link below: www.eventbrite.com/e/becoming-b...

Becoming Benjamin Lay - Film Screening and Conversation with Marcus Rediker

Marcus Rediker (historian, playwright, and co-director/producer) will present the documentary film and participate in a Q&A.

eventbrite.com

We will hold the launch of our graphic novel *The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel* at the New Haven Museum on Wed., Sept. 30 at 6:00 pm. The event is free but registration is required. See the link below. Join us! zip06.com/news/918822/...

Graphic Novel Explores the Amistad Rebellion

A reception begins at 5 p.m., followed by the program at 6 p.m. The program is free and is offered as a Connecticut Freedom Trail Month activity. Registration is required.

zip06.com

Thrilled to team up with vocalist Karen Somerville to present my book *Freedom Ship* through story and song at the Downrigging Festival in Chestertown, MD, Friday, Oct. 30. I loved working with Karen on a similar presentation of the *The Slave Ship* years ago. downrigging.org/event/americ...

Grateful to the good people at City of Asylum (@cityofasylum.bsky.social) for the screening of *Becoming Benjamin Lay* Monday evening before a large and enthusiastic audience, in person and online. With film director Tony Buba and Darin Lee, Director of Public Programming at CoA.

As many of you know, I am a collector of Haitian art. Here is a 1955 painting by a little-known artist named Roland Bigaud, who might have been related to the famous Wilson Bigaud. The luminous color used to depict a vodou ceremony is extraordinary.

Honored that our film *Becoming Benjamin Lay* is an official selection of Pittsburgh’s ReelAbilities Film Festival. Anyone in PA, OH, and WV who would like to watch the film and at the same time support the festival, may screen it here between Sept. 4-13: reela26.eventive.org/films/6a7a2f...

For the many of you who have expressed a desire to see our new documentary film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*, here is an opportunity. Wherever you live, you can livestream tonight’s screening at @cityofasylum.bsky.social, 7:00 pm, through Vimeo. Sign up to do so here: cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

Tomorrow evening, Monday, Aug. 31! Join Tony Buba and me for the screening of our film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*, at @cityofasylum.bsky.social, 40 W. North Ave. on Pittsburgh’s Northside, 7:00 pm, in-person or remote. Please register for the free event here: cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

Tony Buba & Marcus Rediker Present: "Becoming Benjamin Lay" - City of Asylum

City of Asylum hosts a film screening of a new documentary from director Tony Buba and historian Marcus Rediker, exploring the life and ideas of Benjamin Lay.

cityofasylum.org

My blurb for a terrific book coming in Jan. 2027: "... Christian Hogsbjerg places revolt by enslaved people at the center of a creative and inspiring Atlantic-wide freedom story, renewing and going beyond CLR James’s classic *History of Pan-African Revolt*." www.bloomsbury.com/us/atlantic-...

Wanted to let everyone know that we are still working on a distribution plan that would allow people around the world to watch our new documentary film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*. Meantime, we will screen the film here and there, Aug. 31 in Pittsburgh (City of Asylum) and Sept. 28 at NYU.

Sad to learn of the death of my friend Ruth Hsu, who taught literature at the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa. Ruth was a lively presence in a course I taught at UH in 2019, “How to Write History from Below.” She was smart, learned, funny, kind, and gracious. I shall miss her very much. RIP.

It was my great pleasure to see a spectacular performance of Shakespeare’s *The Tempest* last night at the Carrie Furnace Works, produced by Quantum Theatre. This brings to a close the illustrious career of Artistic Director Karla Boos, who founded Quantum in 1990. She went out in a blaze of glory!

Next Monday, August. 31, 7:00 pm: Tony Buba and I will screen our film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*, at City of Asylum (@cityofasylum.bsky.social). Join us! The event is free but registration is requested though the link below. cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

Tony Buba & Marcus Rediker Present: "Becoming Benjamin Lay" - City of Asylum

City of Asylum hosts a film screening of a new documentary from director Tony Buba and historian Marcus Rediker, exploring the life and ideas of Benjamin Lay.

cityofasylum.org

Tremendously honored that my book *Freedom Ship* has been given a Josephine Miles Award by PEN Oakland, a writers group founded by Ishmael Reed and others in 1991, the “Blue Collar PEN,” according to the *New York Times*. Other winners this year include Walter Mosley and Boots Riley.

Here is an interview I did about the body of my work with Thiago Gama for the Brazilian platform @outraspalavras.net. The title is “The Ship: The Factory before the Factory.” You can read it in either Portuguese or (with Google translate) English. outraspalavras.net/historia-e-m...

Rediker: o navio, a fábrica antes da fábrica | Outras Palavras

Historiador mostra como os grandes barcos a vela europeus foram tecnologias essenciais para o capitalismo. E a organização coletiva de marinheiros contra Estados e o capital no século XVII, que levou ...

outraspalavras.net

Sad to hear of the passing of Sumit Sarkar, one of India’s greatest historians. It was an honor to meet him when I visited Kolkata and Delhi in 2008. He was a brilliant, gentle, altogether lovely man. The world is poorer today. frontline.thehindu.com/other/obitua...

Sumit Sarkar: The Historian Who Changed Modern India

Historian Sumit Sarkar taught generations to question neat narratives, recover subaltern voices and connect class, caste and power in modern India.

frontline.thehindu.com