Review by C.J. Bunce
Stamped from the Beginning is a 2016 non-fiction work by Professor Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar whose works on racism have received popular acclaim internationally. The title was a phrase used by Confederate Jefferson Davis, who referred to the inequality of whites and blacks as “stamped from the beginning”–according to him racial inequality was the “will of God.” A new graphic novel by cartoonist Joel Christian Gill takes Kendi’s book and explains the history of racism in America in vivid detail, using five biographies of Americans as mile markers in the nation’s four centuries of black inequality. The graphic novel is available this month here at Amazon.
The book looks at Cotton Mather, a noted Boston preacher and intellectual from the late 17th century, antislavery, anti-abolitionist President Thomas Jefferson, early 19th century abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, the first great professionally trained black scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, and anti-racism advocate Angela Davis.
But the bulk of the history is found in-between these figures, as Kendi and Gill address all the steps that have taken place between slavery in America and inequality today, from the role of the church and early philosophers during the founding of America to the Declaration of Independence, forward and backward steps leading up to the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, Reconstruction, the role of popular writers in fiction and the press in shaping good ideas and bad, and policies of politicians from across the political spectrum in shaping the laws that created the Civil Rights movement, the role of the philosophies of segregation and assimilation, and how racial bias has threaded across culture.
Gill approaches Kendi’s work with first person narration using modern, colloquial phrases and viewpoints to address the historical figures Kendi highlighted in his book, often taking extensive information and compressing it into a single page. In doing so he makes historical concepts more accessible to today’s readers, especially anyone who may not approach the original book directly. It’s not dumb-downed in any way, and it’s also not targeted at kids per se–it’s probably not going to make it into grade schools because it must depict events like lynching and incorporate profanity to maintain its historicity. But using the graphic novel as a medium, the creators should be able to get the content into the hands of a new audience, especially with the reach of electronic editions.
Because Kendi’s book was published in 2016 and stops with Barack Obama’s presidency, the book will feel like it needs some more chapters, but an epilogue begins the conversation referencing the murders of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Barbery, the shooting of Jacob Blake, and the Black Lives Matter protests.
Knowledge is power, and this book aims to share a historically ignored cross-section of history with a new generation, and in a non-traditional format. It’s a thick, book-length, 284-page account available in hardcover, paperback, or digital. Stamped from the Beginning is now available here at Amazon, from Ten Speed Graphic press. Or pick it up at Elite Comics or your local comic shop.
