53 pages • 1-hour read
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert
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Themes
The Multi-Faceted Nature of Black American Identity
One of this novel’s most important thematic arguments is that African American identity is not a monolith and can encompass a wide variety of traits, characteristics, beliefs, and experiences. Darnell wrestles with this idea for much of the narrative, never feeling “truly” Black until Harriet and the band help him to understand that “African American” is a multi-faceted identity that looks different for different people. Through Darnell’s struggles, the author argues that it is possible to approach religion, sexuality, culture, and even activism differently and still be “authentically” Black.
Darnell’s personal struggle to figure out his own place within Black America derives in large part from the discomfort that he has long felt as a queer, Black man in a nation that marginalizes both African Americans and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. In the hyper-masculinized space of Hip-Hop in particular, he feels his queerness is taboo, but he also doesn’t feel accepted as a gay man in his family or his family’s community. It is not until he opens up about his sexuality to Harriet and the band and finds both personal acceptance and broader awareness of how different identity looks to different African Americans that he feels a sense of peace about who he is, within the context of both race and sexuality.
Religion is another key aspect of identity that is portrayed as shifting and multifaceted in this novel. Christianity is a critical component of identity for several of the novel’s characters, but others feel a marked antipathy for the way that religion was used as a tool of oppression by white enslavers. The idea that “there is a little bit of God in all of us” (48) is important to how figures like Harriet and Quakes understand humanity and relationships, and the presence of that kind of inner divinity is part of why they argue that everyone is worthy of the same level of respect. Harriet believes she could not have led so many people to freedom without the help of God, and she remains devout. Darnell and Buck disagree with her on many of these points, and for them, part of African American identity becomes the freedom to reject religion and approach ethics from a more secular perspective.
Another key facet of Black identity in this novel is the idea of resistance and resilience. Here, too, there is room for interpretation and individualization. Harriet’s approach to resistance is hands-on and all-consuming. After securing her own freedom from enslavement, she works actively on the Underground Railroad to guide others to freedom. She plays a key role on the abolitionist circuit and works as a scout for the Union army. Her entire life’s work is the fight for freedom—resistance first to systemic enslavement, and then against its legacy of racism.
Darnell initially worries that because he does not see himself as fit for playing a role in any particular resistance movement that he is somehow doing “less” for his people. The group quickly disabuses him of this notion: They explain that in a nation built by and still dependent on racism and racist policies, merely living life with quiet integrity is resistance enough. For Darnell, “resistance” becomes the courage to embrace who he is, even when his humanity as a Black man is not always recognized by white society, once more reinforcing the various ways of embracing Black identity.
The Erasure of Black History
The novel centers the experiences of one of the most recognizable Black figures in American history, but its ostensible focus is on the erasure of Black history rather than on its “greatest hits.” Much of Harriet’s story focuses on historical omissions and incomplete historical narratives, and a large part of what Darnell learns from her is how to look at African American history with a more discerning eye. The novel also focuses on the erasure of queer, Black American lives in particular, and those stories are presented as instrumental in Darnell’s self-education and self-acceptance.
Harriet and her band share many stories with Darnell about their years of enslavement, their work on the Underground Railroad, and their connections to the abolitionist movement. In each case, Darnell finds that their information either contradicts dominant narratives or fills in gaps that he wasn’t even aware existed. From Odessa, he learns that, contrary to his belief, conditions were just as brutal for enslaved men and women in houses as they were in the fields. He realizes that the threat of physical and sexual violence could be greater inside the house than they were outside, and that the notion that women like Odessa had it “better” is part of harmful, racist whitewashing.
Darnell also learns that Harriet and other formerly enslaved men and women were exploited during the work they did with the abolitionist movement. They were required to re-live painful history to garner support and generate donations, and they were not typically compensated appropriately for their labor. Harriet also contradicts much of what Darnell was taught about Lincoln’s benevolence and Frederick Douglass’s likability within the movement, and he realizes that because so many Black stories were filtered through white abolitionists and authors, actual African American experiences during the 19th century greatly differ from the way they are taught in history books.
Darnell also learns about the history of queer Black Americans, and these stories are especially dear to him as a queer Black man. He appreciates the opportunity to learn about “all the people whose names will never be in your history books” (177), and finds inspiration in particular in the story of William Dorsey Swann, an early advocate for drag and the host of some of the nation’s first drag balls. Darnell reflects that part of his identity struggle has long been the fact that he never saw anyone in history books who resembled him, and decides to take a greater role in his own educational process going forward. Instead of feeling bad that he was never properly educated, he resolves: “I hate that so much of this country’s history was not taught in school. But at some point, I guess I have to take responsibility for my own ignorance” (118).
Darnell comes to understand that he is actually part of a long, although hidden, history of gay, Black Americans, and that history can help him to understand himself better and respect himself more. Learning about figures like Dorsey gives him more pride in his identity than he has ever experienced, and he hopes that his work with Harriet will allow a new generation to hear stories that have been deliberately left out of their history books.
Hip-Hop and the Power of Storytelling
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert explores the relationship between hip-hop and the power of storytelling in multiple ways. It presents African American music as an important cultural product that has endured but also evolved since the time of enslavement. In crafting musicians who are themselves formerly enslaved people, the novel “gives voice” to individuals disempowered by racism and history. It also connects historical narratives to the present-day fight for social and racial justice, arguing that the past still has many relevant lessons to teach.
African American musical forms are presented as a key part of Black culture and Black history, dating back to the era of enslavement. Harriet uses music as a way to alert enslaved men and women that she is waiting in the woods to ferry them to freedom, and as such, music becomes both a critical tool in the path towards liberation and a symbol of empowerment. The spirituals that she sings retain a place of prominence in Black culture during the decades following the Emancipation Proclamation, and they become an instance in which African Americans preserve a distinct cultural legacy. Although Darnell critiques the Hip-Hop scene of the early 2000s for its misogyny and homophobia, he also notes how grateful he was to have the opportunity to work with so much Black talent. Critiques can be made of many different musical genres, and Hip-Hop was, for Darnell, an art form that he felt “belonged” to him and other African Americans.
Using characters who are themselves formerly enslaved men and women reascribes power and agency to a group of people disempowered by the United States’ history of enslavement and racist policies. Enslaved men and women were robbed of agency, voice, and self-determination, and figuring Harriet, Odessa, Buck, Moses, and Quakes as powerful musicians in their own right becomes a metaphorical way for the author to “right” the wrongs of history.
The author also provides Harriet and her band with a platform to tell their stories directly, without the mediating force of a white author or white producer. Given Harriet’s history within the abolitionist movement and the role that white abolitionists played in her ability to narrate her own history, this is an important choice on the part of the author. Darnell notes the impact that Harriet and her band’s stories have because they are able to tell them without mediation or interference, and the album allows them to do so but on a much grander scale.
Harriet’s songs themselves also speak to the connections between past and present struggles. In one, she narrates the experience of seeing her mother stand up to an enslaver who sought to buy one of her children. Harriet traces her own sense of empowerment to this particular moment, but she also makes a broader argument that it is through these kinds of encounters that contemporary African Americans can find the strength to stand up to their own oppressors and to those who seek to belittle them. She argues that Black resistance is actually one, unbroken line of strength that dates back centuries, and that every African American today can harness its power.
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