Women have been involved in the printing and production of books in what became the United States since Elizabeth Glover established a press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1638. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced her to flee the United States, Mary Ann Shadd, an African American woman, founded and published The Provincial Freeman, an antislavery newspaper, in 1853 in Ontario, Canada.

What is the response when ten women are killed every day in Mexico just because of their sex and gender? What organized actions are there to mourn this loss, to protest the forced disappearance of more than 100,000 persons, and resist the ongoing militarization of the country? Mothers, citizens, journalists turned activists—all of them “women who fight” –describe their passionate search for answers in this special session of Art & Protest.

Collected over the course of more than 125 years, the materials in Subjects and Objects pose questions and highlight contradictions: How did the term Slavic collection come to encompass materials from so many lands, cultures, and languages that lie beyond that linguistical designation? How did Russia come to symbolize this region for Western observers—and why does that impression persist?

Winsome Pinnock’s most recent play, Rockets and Blue Lights, takes the audience on a deep dive into J. M. W. Turner’s painting “The Slave Ship,” asking questions about received and shared history. She is joined by past prize recipient Branden-Jacobs Jenkins in a discussion about how theater can help us look more fully into history.
A complementary display of works by J. M. W. Turner, including sketchbook drawings and color studies, finished watercolors, and prints, will be on view in the Yale Center for British Study Room that day.

“Skokiaan” is a popular tune originally written by Zimbabwean musician August Musarurwa that has been covered by many musician, including Louis Armstrong. Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu chats with Regina Bain, Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, about the song and about Armstrong’s tours through the African Continent in the 50s and 60s.