ALL RISE

What does it look like when ordinary citizens resist government oppression?

This graphic novel examines several decades of pre-apartheid resistance and rebellion in South Africa, beginning with early-20th–century discriminatory laws intended to restrict Asian immigration and ending with the miners’ strike of 1946. With the exception of the final chapter, the work explores social change and resistance through legal cases, many of them forgotten in dusty files in the basement of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, in the process amplifying many voices that were largely unknown to history. Each chapter highlights a different act of resistance, telling hard stories honestly and without sensationalism. Zeroing in tightly on a 40-year span allows the book to examine complex historical nuances and feature the voices of ordinary, working-class people and long-standing communities like the Royal Bafokeng Nation who were activists for change. The source material dictated a different approach to the final chapter on the miners’ strike, which is enhanced with striking photographs and features composite characters based on knowledge of life at the time. The illustrators’ rich, evocative artwork in a variety of styles and color palettes adds layers of texture and context to the primary source documents, bringing life to the people and places in a reverential way. The text breathes life into stories of courage that need to be heard.

A robust examination of South Africa’s complex, storied history highlighting faces of radical justice.