"We’re going to end slavery! We’re going to end slavery! Join us! Join us!"
You’re listening to the beat of a freedom fight that echoes across the centuries.
Each step on this 26-mile march along this Louisiana road
is a measure of a story that has been suppressed - until now.
What's happening here represents a piece of history
you probably never learned in school.
The horses trot to the pulse of revolution.
The muskets and machetes are a response to the daily horrors
and dehumanization faced by an enslaved people.
And each part, each player, is in sync to form
a present-day representation of the nation’s largest slave revolt.
The 1811 slave revolt outside New Orleans is so unknown,
you probably wouldn’t even recognize its name:
the German Coast Uprising.
It's a significant part of history because
even before the civil rights movement of the '60s and even the '50s,
you see that there was a desire for freedom way back in the 1800s.
In 1811, these enslaved rebels had the most radical idea of freedom
and emancipation in the United States at that time.
Hey fam, I'm Imaeyen.
Today, we're going to travel back in time, so I can tell you
why there's this plaque marking the nation's largest slave rebellion
and why you've probably never even heard of that uprising.
Spoiler alert: It's by design.
This is what more than a million dollars looks like.
It’s costumes, props, planning and people.
In 1712, Louisiana only had 10 Africans.
By the start of the Civil War in 1860,
the state had more than 330,000 enslaved people.
Hundreds of years later, the descendants of the African diaspora
are walking alongside each other as a reminder of a historic event.
When a slave named Charles Deslondes plotted
what would become the nation's largest slave revolt 208 years ago,
he couldn’t have envisioned that much money,
or an artist named Dread Scott
reimagining his rebellion for the 21st century.
Freedom or death!
I wanted to do this because I'm very interested in the past,
how the past sets the stage for the present.
And I think it's really important for people to learn
about this history, but also to think about how we get free today.
Scott first conceived of the idea eight years ago
and has spent the last six pulling together this massive reenactment,
which is happening about 30 miles outside of New Orleans.
The project features hundreds of reenactors taking on
the roles of enslaved people fighting for their freedom
in a place where you can still see pristine
plantations 154 years after the Civil War.
My great-grandparents came to the United States as slaves.
My great-grandmother came to United States
through North Carolina as a slave.
My great-grandfather came through the Caribbean islands
as a slave here in Louisiana.
And my mother was born on a plantation.
So, that also has kind of spurred the curiosity in me.
Pastor Donald Ray August Sr. is a son of LaPlace, Louisiana,
and he leads a church that he says
sits on the land of former slaves' quarters.
He'll be a reenactor in this event,
and though the rebellion happened in his hometown,
he hadn't learned about it until he was far into adulthood.
I don't remember ever hearing anything about the 1811 slave uprising.
Even the elders in this area have spoke very little
about something that occurred here.
So it's, it's that unspoken, maybe even uncomfortable
part of history that many people didn't want to delve into.
Today, the place where enslaved people gathered arms
is marked with roadways and refineries.
It’s in the shadow of these modern-day structures
that Scott’s art unfolds in St. John the Baptist,
St. Charles and Orleans parishes.
I’m standing on the grounds that helped kill the myth of the happy slave,
and it all happened just one year before Louisiana gained statehood.
It was raining on Jan. 8, 1811, when Charles Deslondes,
and a group of an estimated 25 slaves,
attacked a sleeping owner, Manuel Andry,
killed his son and started a rebellion.
They wanted to start a free republic for Black people in New Orleans.
Louisiana's uprising was partially inspired by news of Haiti's revolution.
That anti-slavery rebellion won freedom for enslaved people
and created the sovereign island nation in 1804.
On to New Orleans! On to New Orleans!
Freedom or death! Freedom or death!
What does it feel like to be dressed up and
embody the spirit of one of these
rebels who was enslaved and fighting for freedom?
This is just like wearing a mask
that gives you that energy.
I can walk until tomorrow. I will not feel tired. I'm telling you.
Ibrahima Seck is one of the people who advised Scott
as he organized this project.
As the director of research for the Whitney Plantation,
he’s spent his entire career studying the transatlantic slave trade,
and he says, it’s his duty to educate people about the African diaspora.
Some people don't want you to be educated
because, you know, educated people cannot be enslaved.
I met people who’d traveled from as close as Mississippi
and as far off as Washington, DC, to participate in this demonstration.
There were also many locals.
Having the community’s involvement was a must for Scott,
a person who, more than 30 years ago, named himself after the man
in the Supreme Court’s most infamous decision.
In 1847, Dred Scott unsuccessfully sued for his freedom.
Ten years later, our highest court said no person of African ancestry
- whether they were free or enslaved -
could become a U.S. citizen.
This particular story is also suppressed because from day one,
the governor actually spun the story as, “There's not much to see here.”
The French colonial society was terrified of the slave rebellion
and the possibility that it could have been successful.
They also wanted to downplay its significant because
they didn't want people to think there was huge numbers
of revolting and rebelling enslaved people.
Another reason this major event is lesser known may be because of this …
Jim Crow.
Jim Crow was another trauma, another layer of trauma.
I think the trauma that knew what trauma did,
did hide the old, the old trauma.
The segregationist laws across the Deep South
made Black people second-class citizens
until the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964.
Unlike 1811, the 2019 version of the rebellion
successfully makes it to New Orleans.
Scott was deliberate in his choice
not to visualize the uprising’s brutal ending.
That white people did some terrible things
during the times of slavery, that's not news.
What is news is that Black people had agency
and self-determination and were fighting for freedom.
In reality, some enslaved people were able to escape.
Others were captured and returned to bondage.
And 45 people, including Charles Deslondes,
were sentenced to death.
Their heads were placed on poles
alongside the river levee from New Orleans to LaPlace
to serve as a gruesome warning and reminder,
another slave uprising would not be tolerated.
They were able to formulate a plan and to carry it out
even though it did not end completely successful.
But they had the desire to even try.
So that exemplifies a lot of courage.
Hell you talking 'bout! Hell you talking 'bout!
Louder! Hell you talking 'bout!
In Scott’s historical adaptation,
the rebellion ends in this jubilant celebration.
There’s dancing and joy and a direct connection
to some of today’s biggest issues.
We don't have those same obstacles today,
and yet we need to fight in as determined a way as they did.