'It makes it real': hundreds march to reenact 1811 Louisiana slave rebellion
Ten years after police in Oakland killed his unarmed nephew Oscar Grant, Cephus “Bobby” Johnson put on a coarse cloth shirt and a red replica headpiece, clutched a machete and marched with 400 other re-enactors through the old plantation land of southern Louisiana.
Over two days, men and women marched 26 miles, through winding levee walkways, suburban sprawl and the historic streets of New Orleans, dressed as participants from a littleknown slave rebellion that occurred here in 1811. The re-enactment was a piece of performance art by the New York artist Dread Scott.
For many taking part, it was an experience grounded in the trauma and complications of the present day.
Johnson thought about Grant. His 2009 shooting death became a focal point in the nationwide struggle for racial justice, well before the white officer who pulled the trigger was convicted of manslaughter.
“Oscar didn’t die in vain. And neither did our sisters and brothers that took the sword and took the cane machete to fight and die for freedom,” Johnson said. “They opened the door for us to be standing here today.”
The 1811 revolt had been written out of formal history for much of the 20th century until, in 1996, a historian named Albert Thrasher published a book that re-examined its significance. It was the largest uprising of enslaved people in American history, and involved up to 500 rebels from across the west African diaspora and from multiple plantations, who rose up against planters in a region marked for its particular brutality against the enslaved. They planned to march on New Orleans.
Scott’s re-enactment began on a cold, grey Friday morning outside a baptist church on the fringes of the small town of LaPlace, about 30 miles from New Orleans. Scott, 54, disembarked from a white coach holding a machete. As a small group of re-enac