Unearthing Our History: A Review of “Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas”

An old saying goes that, until lions are the storytellers, hunters will always write history to favor themselves. Countering such understandings is a fundamental aspiration to ideas like popular education as advocated by Paulo Freire. When people are educated about the world around them, the belief is that they are more empowered individuals capable of challenging orthodoxy and seeing themselves as makers of the future.

A collection lent heft by the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas is a beautifully illustrated sketchbook of 78 key figures influencing social movements. The assortment featured herein is diverse, from W. E. B. DuBois to Rigoberta Menchu, Frida Kahlo to Paul Robeson. Contemporary activists like Yuri Kochiyama and Elizabeth Martinez are at home here beside long-revered radicals like Jose Marti and Emiliano Zapata. Each entry features a portrait or artistic rendering and simple, accessible biography. Why is Florynce Kennedy an important person? What made Simon Bolivar a preeminent insurgent in Latin America’s collective memory? Firebrands ambitiously attempts to tell all the stories in a brief way, one that is instantly accessible to everyone, to varying degrees of success. Nonetheless, editors Slifer and Young manage to tell the story in a dynamic, admirable and innovative fashion.

With books that try to present a variety of historical figures, there is always room to discuss and debate choices. At least a dozen different figures come to mind that might have deserved inclusion over the additions of those who made the cut such as Tupac Shakur and Comandante Ramona, including Claudia Jones, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and others. The Chicano movement has surprisingly few inclusions, with icons like Corky Gonzales, Ruben Salazar, Ramsey Muniz and Reies Lopez Tijerina left out. Some, however, defy any reasonable logic. If one is picking critical figures of the Black Liberation movement, for example, why feature Kuwasi Balagoon (a noteworthy revolutionary somewhat of a darling among anarchists, but frankly a less prominent organizer than at least 20 other Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party activists) while leaving out Huey Newton, Sundiata Acoli, Kathleen Cleaver and others? As Freire himself might have acknowledged, how one includes voices in history is as important as how one tells history. Still, the quibbles are relatively minor, and probably expected. Dozens of vital individuals are featured in Firebrands, and are certain to give organizers an understanding of important people in social movements’ histories, and a teaching tool as well.

Finally, it must be said the art featured in Firebrands is outstanding. Justseeds outdid itself with a cachet of almost two dozen movement artists, from Melanie Cervantes to Josh MacPhee to Favianna Rodriguez. Each of the renderings captures the power of the profile, whether it is a standard portrait or a creative cut at one. The imaginative design gives a lot of heart to a volume brimming with soul.

Firebrands is a valuable successor to works like the late Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and deserves a wide audience.