Marcus Rediker: Distinguished Historian of "The Slave Ship" and Champion of the Marginalized

Introduction 📚

Marcus Rediker stands as a towering figure in the landscape of modern historical scholarship, distinguished by his unwavering commitment to telling the stories of those traditionally excluded from historical narratives. As Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh, Rediker has dedicated his academic career to illuminating the lives and struggles of maritime workers, enslaved people, and other marginalized groups who shaped history yet remained largely invisible in conventional accounts.

His pioneering approach, known as "history from below," represents a radical departure from traditional historical methodologies that often privilege the perspectives of elites and power-holders. Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, Rediker excavates the experiences of ordinary people who navigated the tumultuous waters of the Atlantic world during the formative years of modern capitalism and colonialism.

What sets Rediker apart is not merely his scholarly rigor but his versatility as a communicator of historical knowledge. Beyond his twelve authored or co-authored books that have been translated into nineteen languages, he has expanded into documentary filmmaking, theatrical production, and graphic novels. This multidisciplinary approach enables him to reach audiences far beyond the confines of academia, democratizing historical knowledge in a manner consistent with his philosophical commitments.

As we explore Rediker's life, work, and significance, we encounter not just an academic historian but an intellectual activist whose scholarship serves as a powerful tool for understanding contemporary issues of labor, race, and social justice. His forthcoming book "Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea" (2025) continues his lifelong project of recovering forgotten chapters of resistance and resilience in the face of oppression.

Academic Background and Early Life 🌱

Born in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1951, Marcus Rediker's journey from rural America to internationally acclaimed historian reflects his deep connection to working-class experiences and struggles. As the son of Buford and Faye Rediker, his roots extend into the mines and factories of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia—environments that would later inform his understanding of labor history and class consciousness.

Working-Class Origins and Education 📖

Rediker's educational path was hardly linear. After attending Vanderbilt University, he made the pivotal decision to leave academia temporarily and immerse himself in factory work for three years. This firsthand experience with industrial labor proved transformative, providing invaluable insights into working-class life that academic texts alone could never convey. As he later reflected:

This period of manual labor represented more than a mere interlude in his academic career—it became a fundamental component of his intellectual development, allowing him to bridge the often vast divide between scholarly historical analysis and lived working-class experience.

Intellectual Formation 🧠

After returning to formal education, Rediker earned his B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1976 before pursuing graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed both his M.A. and Ph.D. in history. While originally intending to study Caribbean history, a pivotal research paper on sailors and pirates ignited his fascination with Atlantic history—a field he would later help redefine.

Under the mentorship of Richard Slator Dunn, Rediker's doctoral dissertation, "Society and Culture Among Anglo-American Deep Sea Sailors, 1700-1750," laid the groundwork for his first major publication, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (1987). This early work established his distinctive methodological approach and thematic concerns that would characterize his subsequent scholarship.

Formative Influences 📚

Three seminal texts profoundly shaped Rediker's intellectual trajectory:

1. "The Black Jacobins" (1938) by C.L.R. James—elevating the Haitian Revolution to equal historical significance as the French Revolution
2. "The Making of the English Working Class" (1963) by E.P. Thompson—widely regarded as the pinnacle of "history from below" scholarship
3. "The World Turned Upside Down" (1972) by Christopher Hill—offering a groundbreaking intellectual history of radical Protestantism

Each of these works emphasized what would become central to Rediker's own historical practice: recognizing ordinary working people as active agents rather than passive subjects of historical processes. This principle would animate his entire scholarly corpus.

From teaching at Georgetown University (1982-1994) to his current position as Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh, Rediker has consistently expanded the boundaries of historical inquiry while maintaining his commitment to illuminating the experiences of those traditionally marginalized in historical accounts.

The "History from Below" Approach 🔍

Marcus Rediker's most significant contribution to historical methodology lies in his masterful application and extension of "history from below"—an approach that fundamentally reorients the historical gaze toward those traditionally excluded from dominant narratives. This methodology represents not merely an academic preference but a profound political and ethical commitment to democratic historical practice.

Defining "History from Below" 📜

"History from below" focuses on reconstructing the experiences, struggles, and agency of ordinary people rather than political elites, military leaders, or wealthy merchants. As Rediker eloquently articulates in his essay "Reflections on History from Below":

This approach has deep international roots, reflected in diverse linguistic traditions: "histoire par en bas" (French), "geschichte von unten" (German), "storia dal basso" (Italian), "historia desde abajo" (Spanish), and many others across global languages and cultures.

Six Essential Elements 🔑

Rediker identifies six fundamental components that constitute history from below as a distinctive historical practice:

1. Centering working people as primary subjects of historical inquiry
2. Focusing on power, oppression, and resistance as central analytical categories
3. Understanding the lived experiences of working people in their historical context
4. Exploring the consciousness of how working people perceived their world
5. Recovering authentic voices by letting subjects speak for themselves whenever possible
6. Recognizing working people as history-makers rather than passive objects of historical forces

These elements coalesce in Rediker's work to create historical narratives that restore agency and dignity to those traditionally marginalized in historical accounts.

Methodological Challenges and Innovations 🧩

Practicing history from below presents distinctive methodological challenges, particularly regarding sources. As Rediker notes, "Many working people lived entirely within the oral tradition, their lives recorded only by outsiders who were frequently enemies." This reality necessitates creative reading strategies—what E.P. Thompson called holding documents to a "Satanic light" to read them backwards.

Rediker's innovative approach to sources includes:

• Mining court records where poor sailors and others appeared during disputes
• Analyzing work songs, oral traditions, and cultural practices
• Interrogating merchants' correspondence for inadvertent revelations about workers
• Reading official documents "against the grain" to extract subaltern experiences
• Assembling fragmentary evidence into coherent historical mosaics

Connection to Social Movements 🌊

Rediker's historical methodology is inseparably linked to social movements challenging established hierarchies. The approach gained momentum during the civil rights, anti-war, and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s, which demanded more inclusive historical narratives.

His scholarship demonstrates how history from below serves not merely academic interests but provides historical consciousness for contemporary struggles. By documenting past resistance, Rediker offers what he calls "practical knowledge and inspiration" to present-day movements for social justice—exemplifying the potential for scholarship to inform and energize ongoing struggles against oppression.

Maritime History and Atlantic World 🌊

Marcus Rediker's pioneering work fundamentally reimagines the Atlantic Ocean not as an empty space between continents but as a dynamic theater of historical action where sailors, slaves, pirates, merchants, and empires collided and connected in complex ways. His scholarship challenges what he terms "terracentrism"—the unconscious bias that privileges land-based historical narratives while treating oceans as historical voids.

The Significance of "Terracentrism" 🌏

Rediker coined the term "terracentrism" to describe historians' tendency to concentrate exclusively on events occurring on dry land. This conceptual innovation highlights how conventional historiography obscures crucial maritime dimensions of historical development:

By challenging this terrestrial bias, Rediker illuminates how pivotal historical processes—the emergence of capitalism, the development of racial ideologies, the formation of class consciousness, and resistance to oppression—unfolded not just on land but crucially aboard ships and along coastlines.

Ships as Microcosms and Crucibles 🚢

In Rediker's analytical framework, ships function as both microcosms of broader social relations and crucibles for new social formations. His groundbreaking book "The Slave Ship: A Human History" (2007) exemplifies this approach by examining slave ships as floating concentration camps, instruments of terror, and simultaneously sites of resistance.

These vessels represented:

1. Floating factories producing compliant enslaved workers
2. Instruments of terror implementing racial capitalism
3. Mobile prisons enforcing brutal discipline
4. Sites of resistance where enslaved people maintained humanity and organized rebellion

Rediker's analysis of slave ships reveals four interconnected dramas: relations between captains and crew, interactions between captains and enslaved people, conflicts among the enslaved, and the abolitionist image of slave ships in antislavery discourse.

Port Cities as Zones of Connection and Struggle ⚓

Rediker's scholarship illuminates port cities as crucial nodes in Atlantic networks—places where:

• Diverse peoples encountered one another across lines of race, class, and nationality
• Labor was organized to facilitate global trade
• Revolutionary ideas circulated across imperial boundaries
• Resistance to oppression found fertile ground

The "Motley Crew" Concept 👥

Central to Rediker's analysis is the concept of the "motley crew"—the multi-ethnic, multi-racial collectivity of maritime workers who populated Atlantic ports and vessels. This formulation, developed with Peter Linebaugh in "The Many-Headed Hydra" (2000), captures how diverse laborers—sailors, dockers, fishermen, and others—forged connections and solidarities that transcended established hierarchies.

Challenging National Narratives 🗺️

Rediker's transnational approach disrupts conventional nation-centered historical narratives by revealing how maritime connections facilitated movements of people, goods, and ideas that transcended political boundaries. His work demonstrates how:

• Maritime networks predated and undermined national borders
• Sailors carried revolutionary ideas across imperial boundaries
• Escaped slaves utilized maritime routes to freedom
• Port cities functioned as international spaces within national territories

By reconstructing these maritime connections, Rediker offers a more complex, interconnected vision of Atlantic history that challenges nationalist mythologies and illuminates the oceanic dimension of historical development.

Key Works and Contributions 📚

Marcus Rediker's prolific scholarship has fundamentally transformed our understanding of maritime history, Atlantic world connections, and resistance to oppression. His corpus spans twelve books, numerous articles, and multimedia projects, each contributing distinctive insights to historical discourse while maintaining his commitment to "history from below."

The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007) 🚢

Perhaps Rediker's most celebrated and harrowing work, "The Slave Ship" provides an unprecedented analysis of these vessels as complex social systems and instruments of terror. Rather than viewing slave ships merely as transportation vehicles, Rediker reconceptualizes them as:

This groundbreaking book earned numerous accolades, including:

• The George Washington Book Prize (2008)
• The American Historical Association's James A. Rawley Prize (2008)
• The Organization of American Historians' Merle Curti Award (2008)

Translated into twelve languages, including Chinese, Hebrew, Turkish, and Japanese, the book demonstrates how the slave ship functioned as a crucible for modern racial ideologies and capitalist labor disciplines. By examining the vessel from multiple perspectives—captains, sailors, and the enslaved—Rediker creates a multidimensional portrait of this "floating concentration camp" and the resistance it engendered.

The Many-Headed Hydra (2000) 🐉

Co-authored with Peter Linebaugh, this influential work employs the classical metaphor of the Lernaean Hydra—a serpentine water monster with regenerating heads—to conceptualize multiracial, multinational resistance to Atlantic capitalism.

The book's central metaphor operates on multiple levels:

1. Ruling elites as Hercules attempting to subdue the beast of disorder
2. The "motley crew" of sailors, slaves, commoners as the many heads
3. Repression and resistance as a cyclical struggle across the Atlantic world

This innovative conceptualization reveals connections between seemingly disparate resistance movements throughout the Atlantic world, demonstrating how diverse forms of oppression generated interconnected forms of resistance.

Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (2004) 🏴‍☠️

Rediker's analysis of Atlantic piracy departs dramatically from both romantic glamorization and simple criminalization. Instead, he presents pirates as complex maritime workers who created alternative social arrangements that challenged emerging capitalist hierarchies.

Key insights include:

• Pirates as labor rebels who rejected capitalist discipline
• Pirate democracy as a radical alternative to maritime hierarchy
• Pirates' multicultural crews as challenges to emerging racial boundaries
• Pirate ships as "floating republics" with elected officers and shared plunder
• Pirate swords distinguished from normal swords.

The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (2012) ⛓️

While the Amistad case is widely known through legal narratives centered on American abolitionists and courtroom drama, Rediker's account revolutionizes our understanding by prioritizing the perspectives of the African rebels themselves. Drawing on extensive research in Sierra Leone, including oral histories from descendants, Rediker reconstructs:

• Cultural backgrounds of the Amistad Africans
• Planning and execution of their rebellion
• Indigenous knowledge systems they employed for navigation
• Their agency in cultivating allies during imprisonment

By emphasizing the rebels' agency rather than viewing them as passive beneficiaries of white legal advocacy, Rediker transforms the Amistad narrative from a story about American justice to one about African resistance and self-liberation.

Expanding into New Media: Graphic Novels and Beyond 🎨

Rediker has expanded beyond traditional academic publishing with innovative collaborations:

• Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay (2021, with David Lester and Paul Buhle)
• Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic (2023, with David Lester and Paul Buhle)
• Revolution by Fire: New York's Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741 (2024, with David Lester and Paul Buhle)

These graphic novels represent Rediker's commitment to democratizing historical knowledge and reaching audiences beyond academia—consistent with his philosophy of history as a tool for social empowerment.

Upcoming Work: "Freedom Ship" 🚢

Marcus Rediker's forthcoming book "Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea" (slated for release in May 2025) represents the culmination of his decades-long exploration of maritime resistance and the interconnection between labor, race, and freedom in the Atlantic world. This groundbreaking work promises to fundamentally reshape our understanding of the Underground Railroad by illuminating its overlooked maritime dimensions.

Beyond the "Underground Railroad" Metaphor 🛤️

While the "Underground Railroad" has become the dominant metaphor for self-emancipation in American historical consciousness, Rediker's research reveals that this terrestrial focus has obscured equally significant maritime escape routes. As he argues:

This conceptual reframing challenges our terracentric understanding of escape from slavery and reveals how the sea offered distinctive possibilities for self-liberation that differed significantly from land routes:

Port Cities as Freedom Hubs 🌃

Rediker's research highlights how port cities served as crucial nodes in networks of escape. Cities like Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah functioned as both sites of heightened surveillance and paradoxically as launch points to freedom. His work examines:

• Free Black maritime communities that sheltered and assisted fugitives
• Waterfront economies that provided cover and employment for those seeking escape
• Maritime labor shortages that created opportunities for those with nautical skills
• Atlantic shipping networks that connected southern ports to northern free states

Maritime Abolitionism 🌊

"Freedom Ship" illuminates what Rediker terms "maritime abolitionism"—the networks of cooperation among sailors, dockworkers, and fugitives that facilitated escape by sea. This phenomenon operated at multiple levels:

1. Abolitionism from above: Principled ship captains like Jonathan Walker (branded "S.S." for "slave stealer") who risked prosecution to transport fugitives
2. Abolitionism from below: Ordinary sailors and maritime workers who smuggled stowaways aboard vessels
3. Autonomous action: Enslaved people with maritime skills who commandeered vessels for escape

By documenting these interconnected forms of resistance, Rediker reveals how maritime workers—traditionally viewed as rough, transient, and apolitical—played crucial roles in undermining the slave system.

Rediscovering Hidden Stories 📜

Through meticulous archival research, Rediker recovers dramatic narratives of maritime escape that have been overlooked in conventional histories:

• Abraham Galloway and Richard Eden's ingenious use of "silk oil cloth shrouds" to survive the fumigation of vessels in Wilmington, North Carolina
• Clarissa Davis's 75-day concealment in Norfolk before boarding a Philadelphia-bound vessel
• Jim Matthews's discovery of a docker's badge that allowed him to work his way onto a ship in Charleston harbor

These individual stories illuminate broader patterns of resistance, ingenuity, and cooperation that characterized maritime escape from slavery.

Reimagining the Geography of Freedom 🗺️

"Freedom Ship" fundamentally reconfigures our spatial understanding of liberation by highlighting:

• Waterways as freedom routes: Rivers, bays, and coastal waters as pathways to liberty
• International dimensions: Escape to the Bahamas, Canada, and beyond American jurisdiction
• Maritime geographies of resistance: How knowledge of tides, currents, and shipping patterns facilitated self-emancipation
• Redefined boundaries: How maritime escape routes challenged the territorial logic of the slave system

This geographical reorientation demonstrates how enslaved people strategically utilized waterways to subvert the spatial controls imposed by the slave system.

Beyond Academia: Film, Theater, and Activism 🎬

Marcus Rediker's scholarly pursuits extend well beyond traditional academic boundaries, encompassing documentary filmmaking, theatrical production, and social justice activism. This multidimensional approach reflects his commitment to democratizing historical knowledge and connecting scholarly insights to contemporary struggles for justice.

Ghosts of Amistad: Documentary Filmmaking 🎥

In 2014, Rediker collaborated with filmmaker Tony Buba to produce "Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels," a documentary that traces the origins of the famous 1839 slave ship rebellion to its Sierra Leonean roots. This award-winning film exemplifies Rediker's approach to recovering marginalized perspectives:

The documentary achieves several important historical interventions:

1. Centering African agency by emphasizing the rebels' planning and execution
2. Recovering oral histories from Sierra Leonean villages connected to the Amistad captives
3. Documenting the Poro Society's influence on the rebels' organization and resistance strategies
4. Locating the ruins of Lomboko slave factory, from which the captives were shipped

This film earned the American Historical Association's John E. O'Connor Award for Best Historical Documentary in 2015, demonstrating how rigorous historical scholarship can effectively translate to visual media.

The Return of Benjamin Lay: Theatrical Innovation 🎭

Rediker's collaboration with acclaimed playwright Naomi Wallace to create "The Return of Benjamin Lay" represents another innovative extension of his historical practice. This play, which debuted at London's Finborough Theatre in June 2023, dramatizes the life of the radical Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay, whom Rediker had previously chronicled in his book "The Fearless Benjamin Lay."

The one-man show features:

• Actor Mark Povinelli portraying the four-foot-tall Lay
• Sweeping historical narrative across centuries
• Innovative structure allowing Lay to address contemporary audiences
• Powerful examination of slavery, capitalism, and resistance

Critic Michael Billington praised the production, highlighting how it successfully translates Rediker's historical analysis into compelling theater that connects past struggles to present concerns.

Social Justice Activism ✊

Rediker's scholarly work is inseparable from his commitment to social justice activism, particularly regarding:

His activism exemplifies what he terms "usable history"—scholarship that provides context, inspiration, and tactical insights for contemporary movements. As Rediker explains:

This perspective informs Rediker's public engagement beyond academia, including lectures at community organizations, testimony in reparations hearings, and commentary on contemporary labor struggles.

Curatorial Work at Tate Britain 🖼️

Since 2017, Rediker has served as guest curator in the J.M.W. Turner Gallery at Tate Britain in London, bringing his historical insights to visual art interpretation. This role allowed him to connect maritime history to Turner's powerful seascapes and scenes of maritime labor, expanding public understanding of the relationship between art, labor, and historical memory.

His curatorial approach sparked controversy in 2023 when he resigned from Tate Britain after the museum rejected his proposal to display a punishment box in front of Turner's unfinished 1835 painting "A Disaster at Sea." This principled stance reflected Rediker's unwavering commitment to centering the experiences of the oppressed, even in elite cultural institutions.

Through these diverse endeavors, Rediker demonstrates how historical knowledge can transcend academic boundaries and engage broader publics through multiple media. His interdisciplinary practice enriches both his scholarship and his activism, creating powerful synergies between historical understanding and contemporary struggles for justice.

Recognition and Impact 🏆

Marcus Rediker's contributions to historical scholarship have garnered exceptional recognition across academic and public spheres, establishing him as one of the most influential and decorated historians of his generation. His impact extends far beyond conventional academic metrics, reshaping fundamental approaches to historical research and narrative.

Academic Honors and Awards 🎓

Rediker's scholarship has received prestigious accolades that reflect both scholarly excellence and public engagement. His remarkable collection of honors includes:

Additionally, Rediker's work has been supported by prestigious fellowships from:

• The National Endowment for the Humanities (twice)
• The American Council of Learned Societies
• The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
• The Andrew P. Mellon Foundation

These recognitions validate his pioneering methodological approach and confirm the profound impact of his scholarship on multiple fields of historical inquiry.

Global Reach and Translation 🌍

Just as Rediker studies transnational historical phenomena, his own work has achieved remarkable global circulation. His books have been translated into nineteen languages, including:

• European languages: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese
• Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic
• Cross-regional reach: Russian, Greek, Catalan

This exceptional global reach demonstrates how Rediker's "history from below" resonates across diverse cultural and intellectual traditions, influencing historical practice worldwide.

Methodological Innovation 🧪

Rediker's most enduring impact may be his methodological innovations, which have influenced multiple fields:

1. Maritime history: Transforming the field from narrow naval history to broad social history of seafaring peoples
2. Labor history: Expanding beyond factory workers to include maritime laborers, slaves, and those outside formal wage structures
3. Atlantic history: Pioneering transnational approaches that transcend national boundaries
4. Race studies: Demonstrating how racial categories emerged through maritime labor systems and resistance
5. Capitalism studies: Revealing how maritime spaces and workers were central to capitalist development

Reception and Critique 📝

Rediker's work has provoked both admiration and critique across the scholarly landscape:

Admirers highlight:

• Unprecedented recovery of marginalized historical voices
• Compelling narrative style that makes scholarship accessible
• Rigorous archival research supporting innovative interpretations
• Successful integration of race, class, and gender analysis

Critics question:

• Potential romanticization of resistance
• Emphasis on agency despite overwhelming structural power imbalances
• Methodological challenges in reconstructing consciousness of historical actors
• Tensions between scholarly objectivity and political commitment

These scholarly debates testify to the significance of Rediker's contributions, as truly transformative work inevitably generates productive contestation.

Public History and Digital Presence 🖥️

Beyond academic impact, Rediker has successfully engaged broader publics through:

• Regular media commentary in outlets like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Boston Globe, and The Nation
• Active website (marcusrediker.com) providing access to resources and publications
• Public lectures and community events connecting historical insights to contemporary issues
• Documentary film and theatrical productions that reach non-academic audiences

This public engagement exemplifies Rediker's commitment to democratizing historical knowledge and making "history from below" accessible to the very communities whose ancestors' stories he recovers.

Legacy and Continuing Influence 🌱

As Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History, Rediker continues to shape new generations of scholars while expanding his own intellectual horizons. His scholarly legacy includes:

• Training graduate students who extend "history from below" into new areas
• Influencing diverse fields from labor studies to critical race theory
• Demonstrating how rigorous scholarship can inform social justice activism
• Pioneering interdisciplinary approaches that bridge traditional academic boundaries

Through his expansive body of work and ongoing innovations, Rediker has fundamentally transformed how we understand the interconnected histories of labor, race, and resistance in the Atlantic world, ensuring that previously silenced voices now resonate powerfully in historical discourse.

Conclusion 📌

Marcus Rediker's remarkable scholarly journey represents a profound contribution to historical understanding and methodology. Through his innovative "history from below" approach, Rediker has fundamentally transformed our perception of Atlantic history, maritime labor, and resistance to oppression, uncovering narratives that might otherwise have remained buried beneath the weight of conventional historical accounts.

Rediker's scholarship stands as a testament to the power of historical inquiry to illuminate not just the past but our present circumstances. By excavating the experiences of sailors, enslaved people, pirates, and other marginalized groups, he reveals how ordinary people shaped extraordinary historical processes—from the development of capitalism to the struggle against slavery. His work consistently demonstrates that history is not merely made by elites and power-holders but fundamentally shaped by the actions, resistance, and agency of working people.

The exceptional global reach of Rediker's work—translated into nineteen languages and recognized with prestigious awards—speaks to the universal resonance of his approach. Whether through traditional academic publications, documentary film, theater, or graphic novels, his commitment to democratizing historical knowledge extends the impact of his scholarship far beyond university walls.

As Rediker continues his intellectual odyssey with his forthcoming "Freedom Ship," his legacy remains firmly anchored in his unwavering commitment to recovering the voices of those traditionally excluded from historical narratives. This commitment represents not merely an academic preference but a profound ethical stance—one that recognizes historical knowledge as a crucial tool for contemporary struggles for justice.

In the final analysis, Marcus Rediker's body of work demonstrates that the most rigorous scholarship can simultaneously be the most humane and socially engaged. His contribution stands as an enduring reminder that the past is not a foreign country but a contested terrain whose understanding shapes our present and future possibilities. Through his "histories from below," Rediker has ensured that the struggles, dreams, and resistance of maritime workers, enslaved people, and others traditionally marginalized will never again be consigned to historical silence.