I have been fascinated by the sculptural installation “Subject to the Tide” (After David Hamons) (2018-2025) by artist Oluseye Ogunlesi (sometimes known asOluseye), now accessioned into the National Gallery of Canada’s permanent collection.
Oluseye. Subject to the tide (After David Hammons), 2018-2025 Twill flag, salvaged fence from Africville 11 x 6 x 1 ft
Artist’s Statement: “Inspired by Hammons’ famed transformation of the American flag, this installation reimagines the Canadian flag in the Black Nationalist tricolour created by Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association in the 1920s — red for the blood of Black people, black for our skin and racial identity, and green for the verdant lands of Africa.
The flag is integrated with a fence salvaged from the shores of the Bedford Basin in Africville, Nova Scotia, becoming a powerful symbol of cultural reclamation, unity, and the resilience of Africville—a Black community forcibly displaced in the 1960s that remains a poignant marker of systemic erasure in Canada.”
Mark Auslander’s commentary: The work’s title, “Subject to the Tides, ” seems to have multiple associations. In a manifest sense, the metal gate washed up on the shore of the Bedford Basin where the artist recovered it, was subject to the local tides, taken away from the beach and finally flowing back in. More broadly, the phrase presumably evokes the complex, often tragic fate of the Afro-Canadian community of Africville, subjected to the tides of historical vicissitude, since the 1840s, culminating in the area’s ”urban renewal” clearance between 1964 and 1970. (See the Mapping Memories of Africville project ) The fisher folk of Africville were people of the tides in another sense, surviving through their deep knowledge of local currents and waterways. As descendants of captives in the Middle Passage, they and their ancestors were subject to the tides of an even longer historical trajectory, forcibly relocated, under horrific conditions, by maritime vessels from their African homelands to the Americas and the Caribbean. Many were “subject” to the British Crown in British Colonial North America of colonial Jamaica; then after the American Revolution, the Americans were subject for a time to United States rule under the slavery regime, and then once again were subjected to the Crown, either as former Loyalists in the Revolution as as Black Refugees during the War of 1812, transported to Nova Scotia, and then subject to often unequal conditions under Canadian sovereignty.
The recycled metal gate that frames the composition would seem to embody the condition of twoness or double consciousness long ago articulated by WEB DuBois. The tattered gate evokes both Nova Scotia’s early status as sanctuary or open door for Black freedom-seekers as well as Afro-Canadians’ repeated historical experience of being locked out, the gates slammed in their face by the nation’s enduring system of white domination. The metal grill, behind which the Afro-Canadian flag is positioned, may also signal the fraught position of Black Canadians in the nation’s mass incarceration system, within which Black inmates are disproportionately subjected to solitary confinement and harsher treatment than their white counterparts. Afro-Canada is simultaneously part of the proud Pan-African world and, in many cases, confined behind bars. (Echoing Oscar Mischeaux’s 1920 silent cinematic condemnation of US racism, the work may be taken as a visual denunciation of all that which transpires “Within Our Gates”)
Equally of interest is the locally-sourced twill fabric out of which this Garveyesque flag was produced in Côte d’Ivoire. The highly prized textiles of the Ivory Coast had a complex relationship to the slave trade. As a major source of ivory and fabric, the Ivory Coast was spared some of the worst depredations of slave trade, yet cloth was a significant medium of exchange in the slave trade throughout the African continent. (In the Ngoni communities of eastern Zambia in which I work, the most beloved song is a piercing lament that recalls “Long ago our Ancestors suffered terribly” because of the cloth for which their loved ones were sold away.) Twill, created out of diagonal weave, conveys particular strength to fabric such as denim. Hence the diagonal weave patterned twill, out of which the flag is composed. would, like the gate, seem to have multiple meanings, recalling long duree history of suffering grounded in the Europe-Africa colonial nexus, while also celebrating threads of African unity and resilience, epitomized by post-independence Côte d’Ivoire.
A possible reading is that the entire assemblage constitutes a map of the Black Atlantic, tracing the centuries-long history that led to Black settlement and residence on Nova Scotia. The horizontal and vertical wire cross hatching of the metal gate may echo lines of longitude and latitude, its quadrant borders recalling the equator and prime meridian. The black lines that radiate across the flanking green fields of the flag from the central black square may trace innumerable Middle Passage voyages from Africa to the New World, as well as marking the historical Black settlements throughout the Maritimes. We may also glimpse in the lines the numerous Loyalist, Refugee and Maroon voyages from the British colonies in North America and Jamaica, and from the United States during the War of 1812.
Speculatively, might the installation be conceived of as a kind of altar, into which far-flung worshipers through the Diaspora may lay down their fears, suffering, and deepest aspirations, as they seek blessings from the invisible world? Perhaps, those gazing into this multi-colored matrix honor Yemaya (Yemoja) orisha of the oceans and the tides, or perhaps the redness of the central maple leaf honors Shango, orisha of thunder, lightning, fire, justice, and virility, or Oya, divinity of wind and storms; perhaps the metal of the gate summons Ogun, orisha of iron; or the central cross signals Elegua , Lord of the Crossroads. Whatever the precise cosmological referents, the gate, cast up on the shore by the tides, which are themselves governed by the ancient lunar cycles of destruction and creation, may be much more than a closed barrier; it may equally be a dynamic portal, opening up those who stand before it to the transformative tidal forces of the hidden universe.
My students and I in ANTH215 (Gender, Sexuality, Culture) at American University are developing close looking guides to works on display in the exhibition, “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art.” at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
Here is a guide to Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic Antibodies), 1989. Chromogenic print
Fani-Kayode’s Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic Antibodies), 1989.
Description: The bearded artist, clothed as a priest or friar in a red cloak, gazes upwards reverentially, his head in a halo-like crown of white beads, perhaps in the mode of a Byzantine icon, with possible hints of a Yoruba white ritual crown. Small red lines protrude from the crown perhaps reminiscent of Dirk Bout’s Christ Crowned with Thorns, c. 1470.
Dirk Bout’s Christ Crowned with Thorns, c. 1470.
His right hand is crossed over his chest, his left hand cupped in a manner reminiscent of Christ in Bouts or other early Renaissance Christian works. Resting on his shoulder is a younger man, whose torso is unclothed, his eyes cast downwards.
Background: The rather painterly photographic series Ecstatic Antibodies, drawing on classical European and Yoruba artistic traditions, was created in the 1989, the year that the artist knew that he was infected with HIV-AIDS, Complications from this disease would take his life December 21 of that year.
Interpretive Notes: The work would seem to to fuse Catholic and Yoruba iconography. The work may be a direct citation of Caravaggio’s St Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, c 1598, in which the bearded robed friar gazes heavenwards, his right hand held faithfully over his heart.
f Caravaggio’s St Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, c 1598
As noted above the hagiography of Bouts and his contemporaries may also be at play. At the same time, white beads in Yoruba regalia and sculpture, particularly on beaded crowns (ade) tend to connote purity and spiritual connections to ancestors and the orisha. The friar figure may thus be cast as an intercultural sacral intermediary, leading the younger man towards a space of spiritual sanctuary, under the benevolent divinities
The term “ecstatic” in the series title “Ecstatic antibodies” may conflate the sexual meaning of ecstasy (evocative of the gay scene in 1980s New York and London) with the spiritual meaning of the term, implying a standing out of oneself in mystical union with the Godhead. Under conditions of intense immuno-suppression from the retrovirus, imperiled antibodies may have taken on the quality of saviors, rather like spiritual guardians. In this light, the reverent friar may himself be a kind of healing antibody, protecting the younger man from the scourge of disease. Or, as noted above, he may be a spiritual guardian, guiding the young man from this world to the next.
Prompts to closer looking
Note how multiple lines converge to highlight the face of the younger man. These includes a line proceeding downwards from the upturned eyes of the friar and his right arm, and the implied line proceeding from the white beaded halo-crown’s right side. What is the effect of this compositional strategy?
How do you understand the title “Every Moments Counts” (shared by other images in this series)? Is this an exhortation to seize the day, given the ephemeral nature of life amidst the pandemic? Are the two figures perhaps each representative of a temporal moment, a precious sequence of events at the close of life?
3 Contrast the two figures portrayed here with the double figures in the adjacent work by Fani-Kayode, Nothing to Lose IX in the Bodies of Experience series. In each work, do you have sense of the lower figure being directed upwards, to a higher plane, perhaps being moved on to state beyond this mortal domain to a higher level of existence?
For further reading:
W. Ian Bourland, Bloodflowers; Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography and the 1980s. Duke University Press, 2019
My students and I in ANTH215 (Gender, Sexuality, Culture) at American University are developing close looking guides to works on display in the exhibition, “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art.” at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
Here is a guide to Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Nothing to Lose IX from the Bodies of Experience portfolio (1989). Large format C-print
Notes by Mark Auslander
Visual Description: In a large format, richly colored photograph, the artist is viewed in profile, unclothed except for a leather and metal harness that criss-crosses his neck, chest. and waist area. He is prostrate in front of a standing Yoruba-style sculptural figure with a red face, and a forehead marked with alternating vertical red, blue and white stripes. The sculpture, evidently created by Fani-Kayode’s collaborator Alex Hirst, does not directly resemble any known work of African art, but may evoke the iconography of the orisha Eshu, (or Èṣù, also known as Elegua), ambiguous Lord of the Crossroads.
The configuration may be read erotically as implying the sculpture is sexually offering itself to the crouching male figure. Alternately (or in a complementary fashion) it may be read as the male paying reverence to his spiritual precursors or to divinities on the threshold between this world and the next.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Nothing to Lose IX from the Bodies of Experience portfolio (1989)
Background: The rather painterly photographic series Nothing to Lose, drawing on classical European and Yoruba artistic traditions, was created in the 1989, the year that the artist knew that he was infected with HIV-AIDS. Complications of the disease would take his life December 21 of that year.
Interpretive Notes: As the title suggests, the “Nothing to Lose series may be read as a letting go of conventional reservations and hesitations, fully embracing the terrors and possibilities of death and the ultimate journey into the unknown, shortly before the artist’s death.
The novel sculptural form standing above the kneeling artist, generally held to be evocative of the orisha Eshu, might be read as a kind of ritual portal between the world of the living and the world of the ancestors, into which the dying man is preparing to journey. Since Eshu at times transmits prayers from mortal worshippers to the orisha and conveys their blessings, it may be that the artist is expressing hope that his prayers and final aspirations may be answered, either in this world or the next.
The leather and metal chains that clothe the otherwise naked body of the artist may be read as evocative of sado-masochistic pursuits of pleasure, or as chains of desire (or of stigmatization) from which the artist will soon be released as he moves beyond this earthly coil.
An alternate, or complementary reading, is that the sculpture is an emanation of the artist’s own person, hopes, and dreams. The black pendant hanging around the sculpture’s neck may resemble the harness worn by the artist, and the red coloring of its surface is not unlike the redness of the artist’s skin.The sculptures right arm seems to be directed towards its groin area, which may be true for the right arm of the naked artist. These shared features may suggest a deep affinity between the two figures: perhaps in that sense the sculpture is an externalization or outwards projection of the artist’s inner state of being, especially as he explores his own Yoruba spiritual heritage. Eshu is classically conceived as a trickster and perhaps Fani-Kayode here acknowledges his own trickster and interstitial proclivities.
Speculatively it is possible that the sculpture may be an elaborate erect phallus, arising out of the artist’s middle section, evoking his power or agency in the world.
Prompts to closer looking:
Consider the relationship between frontality and profile perspectives in this image, as well as the question of what is visible and what is obscured. The standing sculpture is viewed front on, with a horizontal line bisecting its face. The artist’s kneeling body is viewed in profile. The pubic area of the sculpture partly obscured by the artist’s head and knee, and the artist’s own pubic area is obscured as well. What kind of doubleness and contrast between the two figures is evoked by this composition?
Compare the positioning of the organs of perception in the two figures. The artist’s face is obscured here, nestled behind his bent knee. Only his left ear is visible. in contrast, the eyes of the sculpture are fully visible, staring directly out at us. (The artist’s ear is arrayed on a line parallel to the sculpture’s eyes_. What effect is caused by this contrast? Might this hint at complementary or interdependence between these two beings? Does the artist in a sense only “see” through the standing sculpture, and does the sculpture only “hear” us through the artist?
How erotic or sensual is this image? Is the sculpture implicitly sexually or romantically offering itself to the artist? Or is the sense conveyed here beyond eroticism, evoking a joining that is spiritual but not necessarily grounded in the flesh or carnal desire?
Contrast the two figures portrayed here with the double figures in the adjacent work by Fani-Kayode, “Every Moment Counts” (from the Ecstatic Antibodies) series. In each work, do you have sense of the lower figure being directed upwards, to a higher plane, perhaps being moved on to state beyond this mortal domain to a higher level of existence?
For more reading:
W. Ian Bourland, Bloodflowers; Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography and the 1980s. Duke University Press, 2019
My students and I in ANTH215 (Gender, Sexuality, Culture) at American University are developing close looking guides to works on display in the exhibition, “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art.” at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
Here is a guide to two linked videos by the Kenyan multimedia artist Jim Chuchu, Invocation: The Severance of Ties, 2015, and Invocation: Release, 2015
Description: In Invocation: The Severance of Ties (2015), a swirling young male body in black silhouette dances, to rhythms that in other times would summon an invisible presence into visible flesh. A disembodied male voice pronounces, to a beat that is simultaneously ancient and techno: “I am not your son. I am not your blood.” Letters and a pulsing curser flash across the screen, alluding to duty and love and evil, traces of an anguished email correspondence between parent and son. In Invocation: Release, the same young man’s silhouetted profile moves on and off the screen, as waves upon waves of smoke billow out of his mouth, releasing toxins of self-loathing and despair accumulated over a closeted lifetime. He confronts mirrored images of himself, and at last embraces one of them.
Background: The project emerged out of the artist’s (evidently involuntary) coming out, following the release of his 2014 LGBTQ+ film, Stories of Our Lives,made with the Nest Collective in Nairobi. Chuchu’s family members raised concerns that he was despoiling the memory of a specific ancestor. In this work, the artist reenacts the trauma of receiving words of condemnation from his family members, and his release of the toxicity associated with their disavowal of him.
Interpretive Notes: The two videos can be read as psychedelic rites of techno-possession, as the artist pronounces his own separation from his natal family.
Rites of possession in Africa have long afforded individuals oppressed within the lineage or clan into which they were born the possibility of rebirth into a secret society, made up of those who have learned to live productively with their possessing spirit. In Invocation, Chuchu remixes this ancient template to envision an even more radical separation. A swirling young male body dances, to rhythms that in other times would summon an invisible presence into visible flesh. A disembodied male voice pronounces, to a beat that is simultaneously ancient and techno: “I am not your son. I am not your blood.” Letters and a pulsing curser flash across the screen, alluding to duty and love and evil, traces of an anguished email correspondence between parent and son.
As in ancient rites of possession in Africa, this act of invocation, while arising from pain and unexpected injury, is transformed into a purposeful ritual of strength and empowerment. The artist’s body, swirling like a Sufi devotee seeking oneness with the godhead, pulses with growing energy, growing the multiple arms of a Hindu divinity, emerging out of a chrysalis toward some other form of being. In the other video, Release, the same young man’s silhouetted profile moves on and off the screen, as waves upon waves of smoke billow out of his mouth, releasing toxins of self-loathing and despair accumulated over a closeted lifetime. He confronts mirrored images of himself, and at last embraces one of them. Like the ancient initiate, he loses one family, only to gain another.
Prompts for closer looking:
Consider the narrative sequence of these film in terms of the tripartite structures of rites de passage first articulated by Arnold van Gennep and further developed by Victor Turner; separation-limiality-reaggregation. How is the artist-subject removed or separated from ordinary life, then suspended in an intermediate state betwixt and belief normal planes of existence, and then reintegrated, as in rituals of initiation, back into ordinary life, at a higher level of psycho-social integration?
It would be interesting to contrast these works with others in Here, in which an artist dismembers an older (often stigmatized) identity in a quest, at long last, to enter a promised land. It would be especially interest to compare the Chuchu films with Tobi Onabolu, “Dear Black Child,” 2021 (directly adjacent in the gallery). How do these different work envision processes of separation and subsequent connection with queer, accepting counterparts?
3. Consider the relationship between word and image in Invocation: the Severance of Ties. In what ways, perhaps, does the stamping of words from the letter or emails from disapproving family members cut like a knife on the body of the artist-subject? How do the rhythms of the dancing body and the flashing words reinforce the impact of the narrative unfolding in front of us?
What does the artist accomplish by placing kinetic solid black figures on a white field, in silhouette style? It might be interest to compare this visual strategy with the well-known appropriations of 19th century silhouettes by Kara Walker in her remixing of the imagery of race, gender, and sexuality.
Conveners: Mark Auslander (American University) and Abdi Osman (University at Buffalo, SUNY)
“There is no problem in this world that cannot be solved.” ― Flora Nwapa, Efuru (1966)
“I should constantly remind myself that the real leap consists in introducing invention into existence.” —Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1967)
This International remote roundtable considers the dynamics of creativity and crisis in making sense of LGBTQ+ art produced within Africa or Africa-adjacent contexts. Confronting waves of institutionalized homophobia and transphobia, perpetrated by state and non-state actors and networks, queer artists and activists have pursued aesthetic interventions characterized by edginess, verve, absurdity, humor, joy, camp, and parody, suffused at times with mourning, outrage, and pathos. The remarkable range of work presented in the new exhibition, “Here” Pride and Belonging in African Art,” (curated by Kevin Dumouchelle and Serubiri Moses) at the the National Museum of African Art, illustrates the dynamics of inventiveness in moments of personal and collective crisis. We consider as well the curatorial challenges of mounting such an exhibition at this moment of history, and the coordinated creative energies called forth by the “Here’ production team under unprecedented circumstances.
Our point of departure is the famous dictum in Flora Nwapa’s 1966 novel, Efuru: “There is no problem in this world that cannot be solved.” Our discussion is equally informed by Frantz Fanon’s call, in the face of historical crises of structural oppression, for unruly “leaps” into unscripted territories that “introduce invention” into everyday existence. Where, at the edge of new horizons of the possible introduced by the “Here” artists, might we now go traveling?
Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Public Ethnography Lab, American University, Washington DC
For more information, please contact: Mark Auslander, markauslander@icloud.com
Co-conveners
Mark Auslander, PhD, a sociocultural and historical anthropologist, currently teaches at American University in Washington DC. He has published extensively on art, ritual, race, and the politics of difference. He is author of the award-wining book, “The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family” (University of Georgia Press, 2011) and co-editor with Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston of “In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Mark has served as a curator and museum director, with emphases on natural science, cultural history, expressive arts, and community engagement. He is the author of the chapter, “Transgressive Energies: Crossing Gendered Frontiers in African Art, Ritual, and Moral Imagination” in the volume “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art” (Smithsonian Books, 2026, forthcoming, edited by Kevin D. Dumouchelle.
Abdi Osman is a Somali Canadian multidisciplinary artist based between Buffalo, New York, and Toronto, Ontario, whose work focuses on questions of Black masculinity as it intersects with Muslim, queer and trans identities. Osman’s practice has been concerned with representing and complicating the gaps evident in hegemonic or normative representations of Black/African peoples to unsettle and broaden ideas about what Blackness is, was, and can be. He has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions, biennale, festivals, screenings, and programs across North America and internationally. His writing on art has appeared in BlackFlash, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, PUBLIC Journal, Transitions, Journal on Images and Culture, among other publications. Osman is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Art at SUNY Buffalo..
Participating Curators
Kevin Dumouchelle, Curator, National Museum of African Art. Curator, Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art. Editor, Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art (Smithsonian Books, 2026, in press.)
Tarek Lakhrissi is a French artist whose practice spans video, installation, performance, and poetry. Grounded in literature and informed by pop and visual culture, his work critically examines the ways language, desire, race, and power shape bodies and subjectivities. Featured work: Out of the Blue (2019) see close looking guide: https://markauslander.com/2026/02/25/close-looking-guide-for-tarek-lakhrissis-out-of-the-blue-video-2019/
Ṣọlá Olúlòde, artist (Brixton, UK) Featured works: Ode to Joy; Stitched to You.
Tobi Onabolu is a London-born artist-filmmaker, writer, and cultural producer, based in Grand Popo, Benin Republic. His interdisciplinary practice spans moving image, installation, performance, sound, and the creation of long-term cultural platforms, approaching art as a living process rather than the production of isolated objects. Director of Dear Black Child . See: https://tobionabolu.com/dearblackchild/ (Photo credit: Elijah Ndoumbe.)
Close Looking Guides to “Here”
The students and faculty in Dr Auslander’s Anth 215 (Gender, Sexuality, Culture) at American University are developing close looking guides to the art work in the HERE exhibition:
My students and I in ANTH215 (Gender, Sexuality, Culture) at American University are developing close looking guides to works on display in the exhibition, “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art.” at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Here are my initial notes on Tarek Lakhrissi’s stunning and enigmatic video “Out of the Blue” (2019)
Description: This mesmerizing 13 minute French-language Afrofuturist video work stars Sorour Darabi, the Iranian-born, Paris-based choreographer, dancer, and artist. The film follows the character Mejda played by Darabi (identified halfway though as the “The Chosen One” (“L’élu” ) on a surreal journey of self-realization. In the opening scene the male protagonist walks, perhaps a little swishingly or mincingly, through a banlieue, a lower income Parisian suburb, as night falls. He enters a green modernist building and attends screening of a film. Wearing a purple hoodie, he falls asleep in his seat as futuristic electronic music is heard in the background. (The ensuring scenes may comprise a dream sequence).
Awaking and walking out of the theater, he encounters a man and woman racing in from the outer door; the man warns him not to go outside, there may be aliens invading.
We then cut to a hilarious out of this world newscast, delivered by beautiful lighter skinned Black woman (played, I believe, by Anissa Kaki) sporting an Afro, in front of a montage of outer space scenes. She reports that the city (presumably Paris) is under attack by aliens, who have kidnapped corporate CEOs while leaving untouched the most vulnerable among us.
She runs through various conspiracy theories about why this is happening: perhaps an explosion of the capitalist system or a US scheme to revive the shows X-Files and Roswell, or an illustration of the “Grand Replacement Theory”, the far right paranoid claim in the US and Europe that shadowy forces are promoting a demographic take over by people of color from the global south (In France, there is a particularly Islamaphobic tilt to the theory.) She then emits a riotous laugh and notes that some speculate that these events are consonant with great feminist thinkers, from science fiction author Octavia Butler to cultural theorist Donna Haraway, to poet-philosopher Audre Lourde (who famously called for the dissolution of “all hierarchies of oppression.”)
We cut to the protagonist in a bathroom gazing into a long horizontal mirror. A beautiful Black woman (perhaps Cherry B. Diamond) with white straight hair appears beside Mejda, perhaps an angel or a space alien. She tells him he is the Chosen One (“L’élu”), that the pyramids are reversed. She repeats, “You are the chosen one, my sister, You know it.” She continues “I know you hang out in radical spaces, including ones in which people discuss the latest Audre Lourde book to be translated into French.” She laughs, telling him not to look at her, but that he has a power to see, a gift to open the pyramids, as the apocalypse is reversed. He embraces her, then gazes into the mirror and declares, “I am the Chosen One.”
We cut to a blue lit hallway where the hero walks slowly, in full diva splendor, wearing a fur coat, seen from behind. He turns to the left. A young man tells him the aliens are looking for you, gesturing inwards, noting that the show will begin. Our hero advances dressed like an elegant lounge singer, towards a beautiful light skinned Black woman sporting an Afro (perhaps also Annisa Kaki?) seated at a piano. As he advances he slowly takes off his fur coat, allowing it to drop to the floor, revealing his long black cocktail dress and a black choker around his neck.
He takes a breath and places his right hand on the piano, his left hand on his shoulder.
He recites a prose poem, as the pianist plays chords, a little reminiscent of Debussy.
The poem contains the repeated couplet, “Bitter is the Truth/You will have to get used to it”
Other lines include:
“Incomplete as much as the Absolute can be””
“Freedom is scary”
“What the shadow reflects”
There are cuts to the audience members, perhaps the Space Alien guests. These are primarily Black with the exception of a white woman in a beret. At one point the young man who invited him into the hall, looks admiringly at him through the curtain.
Another line references “My hand on my stomach and the other on my thorax.” (Perhaps an allusion to the upper part of the torso, where breathing takes places)
The poem concludes:
“We are constantly waiting, for the alignment of the stars, while acting in the moment. I know that nobody will improve themselves in my place. Bitter is the truth.”
The screen fades to black.
Interpretive Notes: The whole work is perhaps an enormous joke on The Matrix (1999), with touches of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” mediated through Black Queer and Black Feminist critical stances. The protagonist is called “ L’élu” (The Chosen One), the same phrase used in French translations of The Matrix for Neo, the hero played by the white actor Keanu Reeves, who learns to see beyond surface illusions and achieves supernatural powers in his struggles against the villainous machines of the matrix universe. In Out of the Blue, the hero undergoes a radical transformation, across lines of gender, to see himself/themself anew, embracing radical self love in a metropolis that normally expresses little love for persons of color or the non-binary.
There may also be allusions to Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001, in which mysterious advanced extraterrestrials guide human cognitive evolution through transformations administered through a humming monolith.
Some viewers may be puzzled as why by Lakhrissi has given this French language video the English language title, “Out of the Blue,” as opposed to a French equivalent phrase, such as “Comme une coup de tonnere” (Like a thunderbolt). Perhaps the implicit reference to the sky in the phrase “Out of the Blue” works with the concept of space aliens descending from the sky. The phrase may resonate with penultimate scene in which the Chosen One walks slowly down a blue hallway, then stands in a cocktail dress by the piano and recites a beautiful poem, a evocative declaration of radical self love, evincing a consciousness that seems to have descended like a bolt from above.
It may be significant that the first known published use of the term “Out of the Blue” was in Thomas Carlyle’s 1837 book The French Revolution: A History. In Book 3, Carlyle writes about the epochal date, the 15th day of March, 1794,, when the Revolution began to turn on its former partisans: “Arrestment, sudden really as a bolt out of the Blue, has hit strange victims.” (see: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1301/1301-h/1301-h.htm_ ) Perhaps the dream vision of the film envisions a sequel to the Revolution, the new battle waged not on the streets but in the “radical spaces” of art and performance sites.
Prompts to closer looking:
Consider carefully the uses of glass windows, screens, mirrors and reflective surfaces in the film. What might be suggested or implied about the fluidity and transformations experienced the protagonist?
Look carefully at the transitional passage scenes through the video: the first walk through the neighborhood, the exiting from the theater, the long slow walk down the blue lit hallway, the slow entrance towards the piano. How do these scenes of movement operate and what do they seem to suggest about journeys of self discovery?
In what ways does the video reference or explore the power of film itself, or highlight the complex relationship between dreams and cinema? The Chosen One falls asleep during a film screening, and perhaps crosses over to the other side of the screen, into a space of fantasy and utopian dreaming.
It would be fun to research the feminist visionaries referenced in the newscast, including Octavia Butler, Donna Haraway, and Audre Lourde. What aspects of their thinking and imagery are reflected are played with in the film?
5 . You may also wish to contrast the bathroom scene with other scenes in the history of art or the history of film in which a chosen one is visited by a guide and informed of their destiny: such as the Annunciation in which the angel Gabriel informs Mary she will conceive Jesus, or the scene in The Matrix in which Morpheus tells Neo he is the Chosen One. How has Lakhrissi played with and transformed this mythic scenario?
6. You may also wish to trace other visual citations in the video, referencing other works in the history of cinema.
7. How do you understand the repeated line in the concluding poem, “Bitter is the truth/You will have to get used to it”? What is bitter and yet necessary about the truths that are revealed in the poem and the film as a whole?
8. It would be interesting to compare Out of the Blue with other works installed in HERE, including Paul Emmanuel’s “Untethered/Retethered”:https://markauslander.com/2026/02/05/close-looking-guide-to-paul-emmanuels-untethered-retethered-multimedia-video-installation-2025/ In the Emmanuel installation a screen takes us in another kind of dreamtime, in which protagonists explore rather edgily the outer boundaries of gender in a landscape on the threshold between joy and despair. What is different and perhaps parallel in the ways that the two works navigative utopian and dystopian possibilities in our world?
This semester, my students at American University and I are developing a close looking guide to the exhibition, “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, ” currently on display in the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA). Here, to get us started, is my provisional guide to the complex multimedia work. “Untethered/Retethered” by South African artist Paul Emmanuel, on display in the gallery’s northeastern corner.
Paul Emmanuel Untetherered/Retethered (2025)
Decommissioned, model T-10, U.S. military personnel parachute with severed suspension lines, detached harness with risers, 550 para-cord. High-definition video projection, stereo soundtrack, 7 min 26 sec. Parachute diameter: 35 feet. Harness dimensions: 30 x 30 inches (excluding suspension lines)
On display in: Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA, 23 January – 23 August 2026
Description: A decommissioned US military parachute, its suspension guidelines cut (as required by the US Military), is draped in a manner that curves inwards, hanging vertically from the gallery ceiling, its lower sections resting on the gallery floor. An open hole of the parachute is visible in the upper center of the assemblage. Hanging in the middle is a military vest-harness of the sort worn by a paratrooper. (This top hole, or “vertex vent” opening would normally stabilize a parachute canopy by allowing trapped air to escape in a controlled manner, preventing the parachute from swinging violently during descent.)
On the paratrooper’s harness is projected an eight minute looped video, showing landscapes from Afghanistan and Iraq, and in which the visitor hears commentary in English and Arabic by US and Lebanese former service members in airborne and infantry units who served together in combat and forward operating deployments. The commentary is subtitled in English and Arabic. Veterans discuss close friendships with fellow combat members, including recollections of pretend homoerotic play, jokingly termed “Gay Chicken”.
The video installation is accompanied by a framed diptych of a ‘hand portrait’ of a Lebanese infantryman scratched into gunpowder residue and a ‘foot portrait’ of a US paratrooper scratched into boot polish.
Short Artist’s Statement:Untethered/Retethered is a video installation depicting the verbal accounts of USA and Lebanese soldiers talking about some of the intimacies that exist between them and their ‘battle-buddies’. Sometimes humorous, other times poignant, they offer a glimpse into the military cultures of both countries and are layered over landscapes of Iraq and Afghanistan. The video is projected onto a US military paratrooper’s harness, splayed open and hovering in the suspended opening of its disconnected parachute.
Detailed Artist’s Statement: At present, the United States finances, trains and arms soldiers in the Lebanese Armed Forces. My mixed European/Lebanese heritage has compelled me to spend the last three years interviewing retired and active duty U.S. and Lebanese soldiers, deployed to the ‘Greater Middle East’ region.
In these exchanges, I was struck by each soldier’s account of the camaraderie between ‘battle buddies’ and surprised that the older veterans from both countries spoke of a profound sense of loss when returning to civilian life. This traumatic experience of detachment resonated strongly with me when a U.S. paratrooper gave me his parachute. He recounted how he had acquired it after retiring from active duty in 2008, only to discover that all 30 of its suspension lines had been severed.
The accompanying original drawings on 2 cotton rags, comprise a ‘hand portrait’ of a Lebanese, active duty infantryman and a ‘foot portrait’ of a U.S. paratrooper. I was driven to record the intimacy of our conversations in some way and they both allowed me to draw their hands and feet, so as to protect their anonymity.
Paul Emmanuel, US Paratrooper, 2024
The Lebanese infantryman’s hands are scratched by hand with a steel blade into a layer of gunpowder residue because he uses an M16 assault rifle and ammunition supplied by the United States. The U.S. paratrooper’s feet however, are scratched into a layer of black boot polish because to this day, airborne troops use it to buff their leather, ceremonial ‘jump boots’ to signify excellence and professionalism.)
Background: The artist, who came of age in South Africa, has previously explored cultures of military and nationalist masculinity in South Africa, most prominently in his The Lost Men series, engaging with nearly forgotten soldiers who served in World War One. Here, he engages with his father’s Lebanese heritage, and explores complex alliances between US and Lebanese military service members in the so called ‘Global War on Terror’ in joint operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Emmanuel also builds on his work on despair, self-harm, and collective healing among combat veterans, who at times face enormous challenges when returning to civilian life.
Interpretive Notes:Untethered/Retethered evokes loving proximity with those who died tragically, before their time as well as non-romantic love between those who served in combat. The piece emerges out of Emmanuel’s partnership with US paratroopers and Lebanese infantrymen in the Greater Middle East region. As recorded in the accompanying video, self-identified straight male combat veterans nostalgically recall outrageous eroticized play in the combat zone, a longed-for moment they seek to return to through joyous collaboration with the artist. Tragically, for many, this life-enhancing sense of brotherhood has proved unsustainable back in civilian life, where depression and self-harm stalk so many combat veterans. In Emmanuel’s installation, the perpetually falling decommissioned parachute transforms into a funeral shroud; the collapsing cloth evokes both the graceful dance of the paratrooper descending while honoring the veteran victims of suicide, who fall “untethered” from the remembered joys of frontline friendship.
The open hole or vertex vent in the parachute, as well as the cut guide lines, which previously allowed for controlled descent to the ground, affords complex metaphorical associations. In its displayed form, a paratrooper strapped to this former parachute would destructively plummet to the earth; such is the case, in effect, for many combat veterans dropping without support back to civilian life. “Untethered” from their former supporting bonds, many endure post traumatic stress syndrome and heightened risk of self-harm and suicide.
The video loop, significantly, is projected onto a harness that covered the soldier’s heart, the traditional seat of emotions. Here, we hear words of surprising tenderness and jocular nostalgia for comradely banter and even homoerotic pretend play among “battle buddies.” This net effect is a simultaneous sense of being ‘untethered’ and ‘retethered,’ The veterans may be like this former, damaged parachute, cut off from support and the possibility of controlled descent back into civilian life. At the same time, acts of storytelling and shared narration may have healing functions, “re-tethering” veterans to one another and giving them the strength to endure, by compassionately caring for fellow veterans. The work thus evokes at the same time both the dissolution and reconnection of bonds among those in a former “Band of Brothers.”
Christological themes of martyrdom and potential redemption may run through the adjacent diptych of the hand of a Lebanese infantryman and the the foot of a US paratrooper. The artist painstakingly created these detailed drawings, working in the former instance with residue of exploded gunpowder, and in the latter case, the polish with which paratroopers must polish their ceremonial jump boots. These acts of creation may be compared to the Jesus’ act of washing the feet of his disciples in the New Testament, a powerful reminder that true leadership lies in serving those who are most in need. Through these artistic acts, the artist perhaps enters vicariously into the bonds of servant-brotherhood that tie together this veteran community, who are themselves wounded healers, who ultimately care for themselves by caring for their comrades.
Photo; Russell Smith
Prompts for Closer Looking:
The curatorial team for the exhibition “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art” has placed this work in the section called “Family”. Why do you think this is the case? What kind of “family” bonds existed among these soldiers in dangerous combat conditions, and what kind of family-like connections do the veterans seek, intentionally or otherwise, to recreate through acts of tragicomic storytelling, shared with the artist and with one another?
What do we learn about maleness and masculinity through this work? Is it significant that the overall shape of the draped parachute, receding inwards, has some similarities to the vagina and cervix, the passageway that links vaginal opening to the uterus, normally considered the seat of feminine identity? Is the artist perhaps suggesting that at the heart of the military combat ethos—conventionally considered the apex of heteronormative masculinity—is a longing for a feminine pole or for an emotional configuration that stands outside of a conventional gender binary?
How do you understand the paradoxes of play as evoked in the video? As children quickly learn, play is simultaneously “not real” yet deeply “real,” allowing for the indirect articulation of truths that may not be easily stated in conventional language. What deep truths about life and death, joy and suffering, masculinity and violence, are being implicitly voiced through the outrageous, even scatological play recounted in the veterans’ storytelling?
Can this installation be interpreted through the child psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s concept of transitional objects and transitional phenomena? Winnicott notes that that moments of developmental crisis, such as weaning, a young child fixates upon comforting play objects, such as a pacifier or? blanket (“bankie”) that provides a secure imaginative bond between interior subjective experience and that objective or external reality. Is the former parachute here a kind of complex transitional object, that similarly moves the veteran between emotional and developmental states during his journey from military to civilian life, and perhaps also from painful mourning for fallen comrades towards a re-embracing of life in its fullest form?
What sensations do you have gazing into the tunnel or funnel shape of the draped former parachute, behind the harness, towards the open hole of the chute? Is the work perhaps moving us into a kind of theater or time tunnel, back into moments of danger and comradely joy, and perhaps also moving us between the realms of life and death?
Might there be parallels to the shape of a recessed niche-altar in a Christian church, in which objects of spiritual veneration are placed, or the mihrab, the semicircular niche in a Mosque, which directs the worshiper’s attention in prayer? in similar fashion, does the overall shape of this installation help to transport us from the here and now, towards other spaces and times, geographically or spiritually?
It would be interesting to compare this installation to one of the nation’s most important works of memorial sculpture, by the great US artist Auguste Saint-Gaudens, which bears the enigmatic title, The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding, and which is sometimes simply called Grief. This work marks the grave in Rock Creek Cemetery (several miles north of the museum) of the photographer Marian ‘Clover’ Hooper Adams, who suffered from depression and took her own life in 1885. The work is in part modeled on Japanese depictions of the Buddhist bodhisattva Guan Yin or Kannon, the goddess of compassion, who aids the souls of the departed in passing through successive realms of creation in their quest for Buddhahood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_Memorial_(Saint-Gaudens)
The Saint Gaudens sculpture, which is also displayed in replica in the nearby Smithsonian American Art Museum, depicts a shrouded figure that seems to evoke both mourning and the possibility of sanctuary for those who have died tragically.
Do you see any parallels to the shrouded shapes of Untethered/Retethered? Does this form similarly evoke both the suffering of great loss and the possibility of being enfolded within the peace of ultimate refuge?
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Adams Memorial, modeled 1886-1891, cast 1969, bronze, 69 7⁄8 x 39 7⁄8 x 44 1⁄2 in. (177.4 x 101.4 x 112.9 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1970.11Scan from color transparency
7 . It would also be interesting to compare the work to important depictions of Christ’s crucifixion, including El Greco’s Christ on the Cross, c. 1600-1610 (Cleveland Museum of Art): https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1952.222
Such votive images were at times subject to religious contemplation, to help the worshiper situate themselves in relationship to the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection and the promise of redemption. El Greco lavishes great care upon the martyred figure’s hands and feet: are there significant parallels with the ways in which artist Paul Emmanuel carefully depicts the hand and foot of his veteran subjects?
El Greco, Christ on the Cross, Cleveland Museum of Art
An intriguing figure in the history of the Mount Zion Union Band of Georgetown, is Mary Ann Marshall, c. 1827-1894. who never married and who resided in Georgetown throughout her life.
She is listed in Freedman’s Bank records, under a Mount Zion Union Daughters’ Freedmen’s Bank Draft, dated July 3, 1867: ”Draft signed by the President and Secretary of the Society, will always be payable at the bank.” Mrs. Eliza Dorsey, President; Mrs. Georgeanna Brown, Secretary; Mrs. Julie Dent, Treasurer; Miss Mary Ann Marshall; Miss Eliza Batesen; Mrs. Harriet Rhodes.
What can be reconstructed of Mary Ann’s life in Georgetown?
The first reference I know to her is in the Compensated Emancipation record of the prominent Georgetown physician Dr. Joshua Riley, 23 May 1863. He reports her age as about 35, so presumably she was born around 1827. He notes “that at the time of said discharge said was of the age of Thirty five, as well as can be ascertained and of the personal description following:(1) five ft six inches in height, well proportioned, & perfectly healthy & sound, skin black lower lip rather prominent & somewhat pendulous check bones prominent. Teethe good. That your petitioner acquired his claim to the aforesaid service or labor of said Mary Ann Marshall in manner following:(2) purchased of Doct . H. Magruder in March 1851 for the Sum of Five Hundred 500 Dollars cash. That for said servant her master had been offered the sum of Eight Hundred 800$ by a trader. rather, than separate a family, he was willing to part with her for the sum named. There was no bill of sale”
Joshua Riley petition for compensation for his former slave Mary Ann Marshall, May 7, 1862
Mary Ann’s enslaver (and later employer) Dr. Joshua Riley, born 19 Jan 1800 City of Baltimore, Maryland, Death 11 Feb 1875 (aged 75) Georgetown, District of Columbia and also buried in Oak Hill Cemetery) was one of DC’s most prominent physicians. He is reported in his obituary to have treated the poor of the city without payment.
He resided at 91 Gay Street, later known as 3088 N Street, NW which also housed his medical practice. The house was demolished at some point after 1913.
The “Dr. H Magruder” who had sold Mary Ann in 1851 must have been Dr. Hezekiah Magruder (b 25 May 1804 in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, Died 20 Jul 1874 (aged 70) in Georgetown and buried in Oak Hill Cemetery
The 1850 Slave Schedules has two different entries for Hezekiah Margruder in NW Georgetown, with 5 and 2 slave respectively. In the second listing, the 26 old black woman slave is presumably Mary Ann Marshall, the year before her sale.
In his compensation petition for Mary Ann Marshall, Joshua Riley claims that Hezekiah Magruder sold Mary Ann to him in 1851 for only $500, so that she could remain close to her family. Who were these family members?
The 1850 census records a free Black young woman, Cynthia Marshall, age 16, residing as a domestic servant in the home of Dr. Hezekiah Magruder. Perhaps she is a younger sister of Mary Ann.
Twelve years later, the 1862 emancipation records record an Isaac Marshall, age 50, and Emily Marshall, age 35, both enslaved by Dr. Hezekiah Magruder. Presumably, these three individuals, perhaps Mary Ann’s father and sisters (one free, one enslaved) were the family members whom Dr. Magruder did not want to separate Mary Ann from. Thus, he sold her to his neighbor and fellow medical practitioner Dr. Riley, where she remained close by her immediate kin.
After Emancipation
What became of Mary Ann after emancipation? The 1867 bank record noted above implies that she must have been an active member of the Mt Zion Daughter’s Union (also known as the Mt Zion Union Band Society). She presumably worshiped at Mt Zion Methodist throughout her life; as noted below, her funeral service was conducted by the Mt Zion pastor.
The 1870 census, enumerated eight years after DC Emancipation, has Mary Ann Marshall, b 1830, in Georgetown, still residing as a house servant, in the household of her former enslaver Dr. Joshua Riley and his wife Juliet Riley.
1870 Census: Mary Ann Marshall, household of Joshua Riley
The 1876 city directory list Mary Ann Marshall as a servant, still at at 91 Gay St, Georgetown (now “N” street), in the household of Juliet Riley (1803-1883), the widow of her late enslaver and employer Dr. Joshua Riley who had died a year earlier.
1876 Washington DC city directory, showing Mary Ann Marshall 81 Gay
The 1880 census again has Mary Ann Marshall as a servant of Juliet Riley on Gay Street
After the death in 1893 of Juliet Riley, Joshua Riley’s widow. Mary Ann Marshall remained in this household (according to the 1888 and the 1893 city directories) up until her death. She appears to have been employed by Mary Anna Riley, spinster daughter of Dr Joshua and Juliet Riley, who resided at 3088 N St until her death in 1913.
3088 N St in Georgetown (now demolished), owned by Joshua and Juliet Riley, where Mary Ann Marshall was enslaved and employed
Mary Ann Marshall received an unusually detailed obituary in the Evening Star, on Tuesday, July 24, 1894:
Mary Marshall Dead. The funeral of Mary Ann Marshall, one of the oldest colored folks of Georgetown, who for nearly fifty years was a faithful domestic in the family of the late Dr. Joshua Riley, took place yestereay from the Riley home, 3088 N Street. She was a women of the old school of servants;faithful to all trusts and respected by all for her integrity She came from one of the first colored families of this sedtion. She was never married. Her disposition was a retiring one, yet all who visited the Riley home were firends of Martha.
She had reached an advanced age
Those who acted as pall bearers were Henry Bowles,Caleb Hawk, Tho Williams, and Chas Smith. The services were held at the house, where deceased had spent the greater part of her life. There were conducted by the Rev W.A. Carroll, pastor of Mt Zion Church.
Mary Ann Marshall’s DC death certificate records her burial in Mt Zion Cemetery on 22 July 1894.
Mary Ann’s Immediate Family
Issac Marshall, Mary Ann’s likely father, is enumerated in the 1870 census as a common laborer residing in Georgetown, age 65, residing next door to John Marshall, 45, a porter, his wife Mary and son Nace, a domestic servant, who are likely all kin to Isaac. Perhaps John was Isaac’s son and Mary Ann’s brother.
City directories show Isaac Marshall continuing to live in Georgetown, at 1513 33rd Street, until his death on March 8, 1899.
His Evening Star obituary reads:
Isaac Marshall died at his residence at his residence on 32nd street Wednesday, night, at the advanced age of ninety-six years. The deceasd had resided in Georgetown the greater part of his life. The funeral will take place tomorrow afternon from Plymouth Church, corner of 17th and P street, Columbia Lodg, no 1376, G.U.) of O.F, of which he as a member, will attended in a body. The interment will be at Mount Zion Cemetery
His niece “Martha” placed a memorial notice in the Star on March 11, 1899. His death certificate indicates he was buried at Mt Zion on March 12, 1899.
Death notice of Isaac Marsahll, 11 March 1899
Note that there is another Isaac Marshall in the 1870 census residing in Washington Ward 4, who must be a different person, married to a Chloe. The Freedman’s Bureau records indicate, retroactively, that this Isaac Marshall married Chloe Scott around 1820 by a Rev. Wright in Montgomery County, Maryland. He may be the same Isaac Marshall who escaped from Thomas Claggett, 8 September 1840. (Chloe Scott Marshall was enslaved by Samuel Anderson, who claimed compensation for her emancipation in 1862). I do not know if the two Isaac Marshalls are related.
I have not as of this writing been able to trace Emily Marshall or Cynthia Marshall, who may have been Mary Ann’s sisters.
Possible Extended Kin to Mary Ann Marshall
Mary Ann’s obituary statees she came from one of the oldest Black families in DC The 1850 census lists about 27 Black free individuals in DC with the surname Marshall. Of these seven resided in Georgetown:
—Cynthia Marshall, age 16, who is as noted above, servant in the household of Hezekiah Marshall, and possible sister of Mary Ann Marshall –Susannah Marshall, age 13, born in Georgetown, working in the household of Ignatius Clark, grocer —W Marshall, a 29 year old man, born in Massachusettes, with four minors (M Marshall, 16, M Marshall, 13, W Marshall 12, A Marshall 6).
In 1862, in addition to Mary Ann, Issac and, six other enslaved people with the surname Marshall were emancipated in DC:
–Chloe Marshall, enslaved by Samuel B Anderson; as noted above she had been married for our four decades to a different Isaac Marshall; Richard Marshall, enslaved by Sarah Forrest, —Martha Marshall and Ellen Marshall, enslaved by Christiana Larner and Arian Tweedy —Julian Marshall, enslaved by Thomas A Richards —Josephine Marshall, enslaved by Jonathan Learn
Perhaps some of these free and enslaved Marshalls were kin to Mary Ann, Issac, and Emily Marshall.
Riverside Memorial Chapel, W 76th and Amsterdam, New York, NY.
Eulogy for my Uncle Alan Saks Mark Auslander February 9, 2026
Good morning. Welcome to our Remembrance of Alan Joseph Saks. Thank you for all for coming through the cold and ice this morning to honor Alan’s life and legacies, and for joining together as we express our love and sympathy for Judy and for Eva.
I’m Mark Auslander, Alan and Judy’s nephew, and first cousin of their daughter Eva. Judy and Eva have asked me to officiate here this morning.
Alan was born January 9, 1933 in Manhattan to Arthur Saks and Helen (Herman) Saks. He attended Queens College and received his JD from Cornell University Law School in 1956. After entering the bar in New York State in 1957, he practiced law with the New York State Division of Human Rights. Beginning in 1981 he served as a judge for the Civil Court of the City of New York. In 1988, he joined the Bronx County Supreme Court in the 12th Judicial District of New York.
He was known during his judicial tenure for his commitment to conflict resolution and arbitration, and for witty and compassionate turns of phrase. After retiring from the bench in 2009, he continued to to serve the people of the Bronx by working as a mediator. A member of the Reform Democratic Club of the Bronx, he worked closely with Oliver Koppell, whom we will hear from in a moment.
Alan married Irene Judith “Judy” (Auslander) in 1956. The couple bought into the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in 1957, and were among the Amalgamated’s longest-running residents or “cooperators”. There they raised their two daughters Eva and Nina, worked together on the campaigns of many progressive political candidates in the Bronx, and had a great circle of friends. They were summer residents of Stephentown, NY, where Alan famously raised generations of home-grown tomatoes, which each spring he would start from seedlings from their terrace in the Bronx.
My sister Bonnie and I have wonderful, vivid memories of Alan, which date to early childhood. We remember, at times of difficulty and crisis, Uncle Alan’s profound decency, compassion, and integrity. My late father Joe, an early political comrade of Alan’s, greatly admired his deep knowledge of American history and his incisive political and legal analyses across their seven decades of friendship. My late mother Ruth absolutely adored Alan, whom she referred to as a ‘true blue” and the epitome of a Mensch. (They also loved eating seafood together.) She often remarked that the arc of American history would have been immeasurably better if only Alan, the most judicious person she knew, were on the US Supreme Court! (Truer words…)
As we mourn Alan, we remember other dear ones who are no longer with us, among them: his father Arthur Saks (1961), his mother Helen (Herman) Saks (1990), brother Eugene David Saks (2001) and Eugene’s wife Pearl, who spent much of their adult lives in France.
Most poignantly, we miss their daughter Nina Saks, who died too young while she was a student at Columbia. Her death was the great sorrow of Alan’s life. A vibrant and insightful young person, she brought enormous joy into our extended family from the moment she was adopted and became Eva’s beloved younger sister and our dear cousin.
It seemed to us that from the unimaginable pain of Nina’s death, Alan drew even deeper resolution to serve others. He finally decided to put himself forward for higher judicial office in the Bronx County Supreme Court. We remember visiting him in his chambers and being struck how committed he and his fellow judges were to the cause of social betterment in the Bronx, especially safeguarding affordable housing stock, consistent with his deep belief that good housing was a fundamental human right.
As a deep believer in the value of mercy in the courtroom and beyond, Alan, more than anyone I have ever known, exemplified Shakespeare’s admonition, voiced by Tamora, in Titus Andronicus (Act 1, Scene 1), which you will find printed on the program:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them then in being merciful: Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
Throughout his life of service, Alan did indeed wear nobility’s true badge
Yet what so many of us will remember about Alan was his passion for baseball and the great joy he and Judy took across the decades in watching the game together. Allow me, as we fondly think on Alan, to quote the opening and closing of Bart Giametti’s baseball essay “The Green Fields of the Mind.”
“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today,,, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone…Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.”
Thank you
A Tribute to My Father
by Eva Saks (read aloud by Eva’s cousin, Bonnie Auslander)
My father, Alan Saks, was better-looking than Paul Newman and a better singer than Bing Crosby. He loved Chinese food, baseball, his family, and justice.
Of course, justice had its own demands. On one memorable road trip, when I was about eight, I finally talked my parents OUT of staying in some “charming one-of-a-kind country inn,” and INTO staying in my idea of heaven: Howard Johnson’s. A chain where they’re all the same! The real America! Going into the dining room there for breakfast, I will never forget my delight at the plastic menu with photos of food, the uniformity, the conformity….I was blissfully eating mass-produced blueberry pancakes when suddenly my dad noticed something on the menu and got very quiet. He called the waitress over, and very politely asked her, “Do you know that Howard Johnson’s has locations in South Africa? Where they have apartheid?” I realized instantly that I better eat my pancakes fast, as we would be leaving Howard Johnson’s VERY soon. And so we did. Bravo, Dad.
Dad was a proud public servant. Before becoming a judge, he worked as a Civil Rights lawyer at the New York State Division on Human Rights. (As a matter of fact, he hired the first woman law clerk there. He also won the anti-discrimination case for the first female umpire in the Major League.) He believed in the power of the law to do good. He also enjoyed that his office was right near Chinatown, and tried just about every restaurant there.
Dad was never naive, but nonetheless he remained an idealist. Again, I confess, it took me a while to appreciate his idealism: Throughout my childhood, I begged him to stop being a Civil Rights lawyer and go into private practice, so I could get a pony. Fortunately, he ignored these entreaties.
I finally realized how lucky I was when I went to visit him at work at the New York State Division on Human Rights, when I was in high school. I was sitting reading at a long table covered with law books and person after person kept coming up to take me aside and tell me how my dad had saved them when they were in need: “Your father was there for me when I lost my mother” “Your father helped me when I went bankrupt” “Your father helped me get a student loan.” Honestly, it was like something out of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Dad made the world better.
Dad was a hero to me in other ways, too. I will always treasure the memory of Father’s Day at the middle school I went to, Fieldston, because on that day, fathers came to gym class and participated in an outdoor game of kickball. (Kickball is basically the same as baseball, except instead of batting a baseball, you kick a watermelon-sized rubber ball.) I remember my anxiety as dad waited his turn. Some fathers missed the ball altogether. “You’re OUT!” Some fathers kicked it so high it was easily caught. “You’re OUT!” Another father kicked a triple and got to third base. Oy – who could compete with that? Then it was dad’s turn. Would he lose the game for our team? Dad was cool as a cucumber. He concentrated and he kicked…I waited…and the ball went over the field…over the wall of the school grounds… and across the street into a distant park. “HOME RUN!” Not only did this end the tension, it ended the game altogether, as no one could even FIND the ball. Dad was the hero of the day, actually a superhero.
Did you know my father loved birds? And botany? He even took a night course in botany when I was very little. Perhaps this botany course contributed to his later evolution into Farmer Saks: It turned out this New York City kid had a Green Thumb, especially with tomatoes. He grew copious tomatoes, both at our country house in Stephentown and on the balcony of our Bronx apartment.
Again, initially I was slow to appreciate this gift. In fact, when my parents showed up to visit me when I was a student in law school, they arrived bearing a HUGE basket of home-grown tomatoes. In the main hallway of Yale Law School. I was honestly a little embarrassed. But then a CROWD of my hungry classmates gathered round clamoring to get some. Another life lesson from dad: Home-grown tomatoes were cool! Dad made me the most popular girl at law school that day. Thank you, dad!
Dad loved to sing and we all loved singing together around the kitchen table. And Dad knew just about every song ever written (up to 1960). Like his mom Helen, he was an expert in Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley tunes. My dear friend Sam Austin, a professional piano bar player, said my dad was the only person who ever stumped him with a song request. For the record, Dad’s favorite songs included “Pennies from Heaven,” Paul Robeson singing “Ballad for Americans,” and “Pale Hands I Loved, Beside the Shalimar.” That last one might be the song that stumped my friend Sam.
Dad was also a great connoisseur of old movies. He enjoyed a wide variety of them, but he never lost his RIGOR. Two months ago, we were on the phone and we were both watching Turner Classic Movies. He was watching DOUBLE INDEMNITY and I mentioned I was watching MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE. He considered this — really, took it under advisement — and replied, “That’s a fun movie, but DOUBLE INDEMNITY is better.” Quite right. My dad was dedicated to judicious precision – to what Wallace Stevens called “the romance of the precise.”
Of course the movie that we all associated with my dad the most was TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. After my college friend Jeff Nunokawa met my father, Jeff told me that my dad reminded him of Atticus Finch. Thereafter whenever my dad’s name came up, Jeff would always murmur a line from the film “Stand up, Scout. Your father’s passing.” This is what the townspeople said to Atticus’s seated daughter, as Atticus was leaving the courtroom after a day of defending the unjustly accused Tom Robinson. It was the ultimate act of respect from people watching a lawyer fight for justice: “Stand up, Scout. Your father’s passing.”
It is hard not to reflect that we are losing my father at a time when we can ill afford to lose someone who so loved justice.
The great loss of my father’s life – as for my mother and me – was the death of my sister Nina at 19. Dad once told mom and me, “I wouldn’t mind dying if I could see her again.” Here’s hoping.
The great joy of his life was my mother. They shared a passion for baseball, but it must be disclosed that mom supports the Mets while dad favored the Yankees. Mom would laugh at this conflict and point out that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” But stand they did. A vivid memory of their bond: When I was in junior high school, I remember asking my parents at the dinner table, what was MADAME BOVARY about? Little did I realize what I had started. They both began telling me the story, taking turns with plot turns, and the next thing I knew, they were both crying over Emma Bovary’s fate. Their emotional relationship to literature, not to mention each other, was poignant and indelible.
When I last saw dad, he looked less like Paul Newman but still sang better than Bing Crosby. We all spent a lot of time singing around the kitchen table! Dad and mom showed off a recently unearthed duet from vaudevillians Gallagher and Sheen, as well as the 1919 classic “Snoops the Lawyer,” by Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby.
Dad turned 93 a week before he died. He and mom had Chinese food. Mom tells me he loved the blue pajamas I sent him for his birthday. I also sent him a plaque that said NUMBER ONE DAD. He died holding my mom’s hand.
And there you have it.
Please eat a tomato in his memory. And go to a protest.
“Stand up, Scout. Your father’s passing.”
A Memory of Alan Saksby Ellen Schattschneider (niece)
One of my favorite passages about gardens is the poem by E.B White, “To My American Gardener, With Love” (1930):
Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom, The seedbed is the restless mind itself. Not sun, not soil alone can bring to border This rush of beauty and this sense of order. Flowers respond to something in the gardener’s face — Some secret in the heart, some special grace.
Remembering Alan contentedly working in his Stephentown garden with supreme concentration, calls to mind that remarkable poem. Alan’s face radiated pleasure, as he pulled weeds and tied up tomato plants. lost in his garden world. The warmth of his bright red tomatoes, carefully transported as seedlings from the Bronx to the rear plot on Goodrich Hollow Road, were testament, I always felt, to some secret in Alan’s generous, bountiful heart. Gathered around Judy’s table, feasting on those tomatoes, we were indeed nourished by his “special grace.”
I am also reminded of the heroine Mary’s discovery of the mysterious garden in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel, The Secret Garden: “She was inside the wonderful garden and she could come through the door under the ivy any time, and she felt as if she found a world all her own.”
Walking out the back door of the house on Goodrich Hollow, which led to vegetable garden, I always felt that I was entering into Alan’s dappled summertime world, from which tiny miracles sprang forth all season long.
So, thank you Alan for our memories of that abundant sanctuary and those luscious tomatoes– from your very own “secret garden”.
Because there is a meaning in the lily, let there be worship; and in the poplar, let there be height; and in the arborescent heather, let there be growth; and in the copper, first treatment I give to the vine, let there be harvest.
And another meaning, I predict, there is in memory, so let there be outburst. And another, immeasurable, in love, so let there be surrender. And another, definitive, in death, let there be release.
—António Osório (1933-2021)(Translated, from the Portuguese, by Patricio Ferrari and Susan M. Brown.)
Campaign flyer in the Bronx, 1977At an induction into judgeship, The Bronix. With wife Judy and duaghter Eva.Alan judiciously takes Justice for a walk
Overview Remembrance: Hon. Alan J Saks (retired) died peacefully in Bronx, NY on January 16, 2026 at age 93, following a brief illness. Born January 9, 1933 in Queens NY to Arthur (Sklarsky) Saks (a surplus goods merchant) and Helen D (Herman) Saks, he attended Queens College and received his JD from Cornell University Law School. He entered the bar in New York State in 1957 and the same year moved to Bronx, NY, where he resided with his wife Irene (“Judy”) for the rest of his life. He practiced law with the New York State Division on Human Rights, and beginning in 1981 served as a judge for the Civil Court of the City of New York. In 1988, he joined the Bronx County Supreme Court in the 12th Judicial District of New York. He was known during his judicial tenure for his deep commitment to mediation and arbitration, and for witty and compassionate turns of phrase. He retired from the bench in 2009. After retirement he continued to serve the Bronx community as a mediator for several years. He also served on Community Board 8 and was a Democratic district leader. He was a lifelong progressive and member of the Reform Democratic Club of the Bronx.
Alan married his wife of seven decades, Irene Judith “Judy” (Auslander) Saks in 1956, after they met at the Tanglewood Festival House, where he was working during the summer as a waiter while a law student. (He had previously worked with Judy’s brother Joe in the anti-fascist organization American Youth for Democracy at Queens College.) The couple bought into the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative, adjacent to Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park in 1957, and were ranked among the Amalgamated’s longest-running cooperators. There they raised their two daughters Eva and Nina, worked together on the campaigns of many progressive political candidates in the Bronx, and had a great circle of friends. They were summer residents of Stephentown, NY, a community the family dearly loved, living close by Judy’s beloved cousin Alice (Shapiro) Swersey and her husband Burt.
Alan was a prodigious consumer of political news and, with Judy, an avid baseball fan. He and Judy adored old movies, including The Great McGinty (1940), Casablanca (1942), Watch on the Rhine (1943) and The Apartment (1960), the latter about the struggle to resist the corporate ladder and become a “Mensch” on the eve of the 1960s.
Alan, along with Judy, took great pride in the varied accomplishments of their daughter Eva Saks, as a theater director, film director, casting director, entertainment attorney, and most recently, as an animal advocate and director of Sheltie Rescue Alternative, Inc, a 501(c)3 charity (dog rescue) for seniors/special needs dogs, mostly Shelties. Alan deeply loved and mourned his gifted daughter Nina, who passed much too soon when she was a student at Columbia University.
Alan was preceded in death by his father Arthur Saks (1961), his mother Helen (Herman) Saks (1990), brother Eugene David Saks (2001), and daughter Nina Saks (1989). He is survived by his wife Judy of the Bronx, daughter Eva of Los Angeles, California, niece Bonnie Auslander of Lyons, Colorado, nephew Mark Auslander of Washington DC, great-niece Nina Auslander-Padgham, great-nephew Milo Glover, and many cousins.
Alan at the Aerosquadron restaurant (Van Nuys, CA) with aviation memorabilia in the background, judiciously pondering dessert options.
Alan at home, 124 Gale Place, The Bronx, in front of portrait of Judy’s grandmother Chava (Weinstein) Zeltzer, by Judy’s uncle Harry Shapiro
Alan (with NY Times Magazine crossword puzzle of course) and Judy at the home of daughter Eva in Van Nuys, CA, with grand-dogs Mason and Hobby
Alan converses from the Bench with canine Counselor for the Defense, as the jury looks on.
Hobby kisses Alan as Judy looks on.
”
Alan toasts multispecies solidarity in the struggle for equal rights!
Memories of Alan by Family and Friends
Ellen Schattschneider (niece through marriage; married to Mark Auslander, Alan and Judy’s nephew ): From the time I came into the family, I was dazzled by Alan’s astonishing command of history, world affairs, and innumerable other domains of inquiry. Alan had the remarkable gift of sharing his encyclopedic command of human knowledge without ever making the other person feel in the least diminished; he always managed to make conversations on politics, film, sports, or music feel like shared explorations and never like didactic lectures, always suffused with playfulness and curiosity.
As a fellow gardener, I particularly loved watching him nurture his tomatoes from seedlings on the Amalagamated terrace to robust maturity in Stephentown, a significant accomplishment given the fickleness of these varietals! And what joy conversing to him about baseball, especially the complicated history of the New York teams: Alan was a Yankees fan, Judy a Met’s fan, and my Dad a Giants fan, so we had all possible Subway Series pretty well covered (and after the Giants’ moved to San Francisco, we had cross-continental travel covered too!)
Finally, I was always honored when he told me I resembled his beautiful mother Helen, a kind and generous compliment that made me feel welcome into the family from the very first day!
Barbara Meeker (Sister in law): My late husband Joe Auslander (Judy’s sister and Alan’s brother-in-law) was very proud of having known Alan before Judy met him; Joe always thought it was one of his own life accomplishments to have introduced Alan to the family.
Second, I want to acknowledge Alan’s loving and steady care for his mother Helen over many years.
Daniel Shaviro (cousin): Because Alan was a judge, he performed Pat’s and my wedding ceremony on September 11, 1988. He wanted to get to know Pat before performing the ceremony, and was lovely and kind throughout. We were very glad to be able to do this in the family, and with someone I knew and liked, especially given that we did not want a religious ceremony of any kind. (And we didn’t know any other judges, not to mention ship captains.)
My mom (Frieda Shaviro) would always tell me that we “owed” him for doing this, which I thought a bit over-scrupulous as he seemed to take genuine pleasure in it.
I always enjoyed meeting him at family functions thereafter (as well as before), as he was always good-humored and fun to talk with.
Lucy Kerman (cousin): I have lovely memories of Alan, especially from my college years, when I would visit my Uncle Sol and Aunt Frieda in the Amalgamated. He was such a warm, funny, welcoming man!
Alan at birthday party for Misha Swersey, Shadowbrook Farm, August 2009.Alan portrait, by Paul Resika, 17 June 1996
The 1749 will of Richard Bennett III (Bennett’s Point, Queen Anne’s County, Maryland) allocates at least 36 enslaved people to Bennett’s cousin John Rousby, who also inherits the land of Bennett’s Point and southern Morgan’s Neck where Bennett had resided since around 1700. As I have discussed elsewhere, the named enslaved individuals bequeathed to Rousby were:
“To said cousin John Rousby, these negroes: Isaac & his wife, Little Kate, & their chldn; Molatto Tom & his wife, Sue, & their chldn; Jacob Gardner & his wife, Sarah, & their chldn; Old 1y, Lame Joe; Jorey the taylor & his wife & chldn.; Jack Gooby that attends in the house; Antigua George & his wife Kate Webb & their chldn.; Trippling & his wife & chldn.; the woman Maudling & her chldn.; the woman Mariah & her chldn. Jack & Will; also all the livestock & crops on the plntn. where I dw. & the wading place plntn.”
These individuals are likely to have remained on the local land, at least for some period of time, perhaps up until 1760, when the manor house burned. Among these 36 or more people, three couples are identified with a surname: “Antigua George and his wife Kate Webb,” “Jack Gooby that attends the house”, and “Jacob Gardner and his wife Sarah Gardner”. I have previously posted on Jack Gooby. What can we infer about the lives and possible descendants of Jacob and Sarah Gardner and Antigua George and Kate Webb?
1, Jacob and Sarah Gardner
Neither Jacob nor Sarah Gardner appear in the 1753 probate inventory of Bennett’s heir John Rousby, so they may have been sold or transferred elsewhere, or died in the interim. I have no seen subsequent reference ot them in local probate records or other documents.
Possible kin:
I have not seen references in 18th century records to ensalved Gardners on the Eastern Shore. Father Mosley, SJ diary, recording sacremental practices such as baptism, which mentions enslaved Thomas Gooby, does not mention any any Gardeners.
Free and enslaved Gardners mentioned 19th century records include:
—Maria Gardner, free Black woman, born around 1830, with her two year old son William Gardner, emplyed in the household of saddler John Ferguson in District 3, Centreville, Queen Anne’s County, in the 1860 census. —Henry Gardner, evidently runaway, seemingly owned by a “Maxwell,: Queen Anne’s Co., Md. was released to W. H. Wilmer 30 May 1833. August 1847 advertisements records the escape of Ann Gardner, owned by Louis Maceron near the Navy Yard in Washington D.C.
—-Warner Gardner, freeman, born around 1804 in Caroline County, to the immediate east of Queen Anne’s County.
—William Henry Gardner of Anne Arundel County, across the bay from Queen Anne’s, was born free, according to an 1855 freedom certificate
In November 1864, under the new state constitution, the following seven individuals were emancipated (with compensation claims filed by their owners in 1867):
—Leathen Gardner and Wash Gardner, owned by Wm F Anderson, Anne Arundel County
—Lucy Gardner, Wesley Gardner, Sarah Gardner, Perry Gardner, Robert Gardner, owned by Ben O’Mulliken, , Anne Arundel County,
A possible Descendant: Jacob Gardner, 1845-1895
Jacob and Sarah from Bennett’s Point seem likely to be related to Jacob Gardner, 1845-1895, born in Caroline county, residing then on Kent Island,, who enlisted 24 March 1864 in Queen Anne’s County in the United States Colored Infantry 39th regiment, Company D. His military records indicate that he was a slave when he enlisted, although I am not sure whom his enslaver was.
Jacob Gardner 1865 military record, USCT 39, co. D
He was hospitalized in North Carolina it appeared with an infectious disease and returned to duty on August 2, 1865. He lists as his closest relative on Kent Island, Queen Anne’s County a Charlotte Wright. (This may be the Charlotte Wright, age 35, who resided on Broad Creek in the 1870 census: so perhaps Jacob’s sister). He mustered out, December 4, 1865 in Wilmington NC.
By 1870, Jacob was residing in Washington DC, on N street near 1st street SE. He married wife Julia. He applied for a pension on 12 July 1890. He worked at the Washington Navy Yard and died 1 June 1895 at home in southeast DC of heat-induced heart trouble, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
There are other enslaved Gardners documented in the area; eg William Gardner, escaped from Dr. Jarrett Snowden of Anne Arundel Co; Warner Gardner, freeborn in Caroline Co in 1804, etc. And I see in November 1864, enslaver Ben O’Mulkin manumitted five slaves with the surname Gardner, including a Sarah Gardner, in Anne Arundel County, MD. I do not know if any of these are related to the Jacob and Sarah Gardner of Bennett’s Point (1749
II. Antigua George and Kate Webb
Antigua George and his wife Kate Webb and their children, as noted , were bequeathed in 1749 to Richard Bennett’s cousin, John Rousby. Rousby died three years later of a “violent fever,” and his probate inventory mentioned the same Antingua George and Kate Webb. “Negro woman named Kate Webb, 24 years old at 35 pounds”
John Roubsy’s property passed to his widow Anne Frisby Rousby (after she sued to break her late husband’s will, claiming he was not of sound mind before his death, and thus secured Rousby Hall for herself). Within two years or so, Anne Rousby married, under coercion, Colonel William Fitzhugh, who acquired her property. (In a strange twist, Fitzhugh had convinced a nursemaid to bring Anne’s infant girl Elizabeth to him c 1752 and threatened to drown her in the Patuxent River unless Anne’s consented to marry him. Elizabeth later married George Plater, Maryland governor)
Then in April 1767, Matthew Bryan of Wye River (an agent of William Fitzhugh) placed advertisements in the Maryland Gazette for runaway Antigua George, between 50 to 60 years old, stating he had escaped multiple times, and been recaptured in Talbot County and then escaped yet again:
“Wye River, February 21, 1767. Ran away about a Year ago, a Negro Man, goes by the same of Antigua George, was born in Antigua, talks good English, is betwixt 50 and 60 years old, about 5 feet feet five inches hight, grey headed, and bends much in the legs when he walks, Had ona cotton Jacket and breeches, County made shoes and stockings and Osnabrigs Shirt. He has since been taken up twicen Talbot and made his escape and imagine he passes for a free Negro.“
Whoever talks up the said Negro, if in Talbot shall have Twenty Shillings reward, if brought home; if any farther distance, four dollars reqards and reasonable charges, if brought home, paid by the subscriber living at Wye River. Mathew Bryan” (Maryland Gazette Annapolis, Maryland · Thursday, April 16, 1767, p. 4)
Runaway ad for Antigua George. Maryland Gazette, 2 April 1767.
I do not know if Antigua George made good his escape this time around, or if his wife Kate Webb was still alive at this point.
Cate, Possible Daughter of Antigua George and Kate Webb
The 1751 inventory for John Rousby, lists at a different location (perhaps Rousby Hall, Calvert County) an infant Cate, girl who may be the daughter of Kate Webb: “Negro girl named Cate, 2 years old at 10 pounds” (b. 1749)
Thirty years later, in 1781, most of the enslaved people owned by William Fitzhugh at Rousby Hall, Calvert County, made their escape on a British vessel. I am not sure if any of these individuals subseqeuently made their way to Nova Scotia or other British territory.
As noted above, the slaves and land passed from John Rousby to his widow Ann Frisby Rousby, and then to her second husband, Colonel William Fitzhugh. It would appear that the same infant Cate, born about 1749, appears later in the 1798 inventory of Col. William Fitzhugh in The Hive, Hagerstown, Washington County MD as enslaved “Cate, age 49”, so born 1749, which would match with the infant Cate.
In the 1798, inventory Cate, age 49. is listed in the same family grouping as Tom, age 50 (likely husband) and Jack, 18, Nacy, 23, Fanny, 21 (possibly, Cate’s children) and then Henry 3, Rebecca 1 (possibly Fanny’s children?)
The suspected marital relationship between Cate and Tom is confirmed in Colonel Fitzhugh’s 1798 will: ” I give and bequeath unto my son William (Frisby) Fitzhugh to him and his heirs forever the following slaves and their increase, Sucky, Charles, Betty, Maryann, Sucray?, Toby, Fanny, Black Bett, Carpenter James, Mulatto Rose, Mill James and Agnes his wife, Ned, Tom and Cate his wife. “
Will of William Fitzhugh, 1798, Hagerstown, MD, mentions slave Tom and his wife Cate, at end of list of 17 slaves.
I do not know what happened to these enslaved people. The younger Col William Frisby Fitzhugh in 1800 held 76 slaves in Washington Co, Maryland but then movd eventually to western New York state and beccameone of the fonuders of Rochester. The 1830 census in Livingstone County, NY, show Wililam Fitzhugh with 5 free persons of color but no slaves.
Possible kin of Antigua George and Kate Webb:
The 1860 census lists about 95 Free Black people in Maryland with the surname Webb.
—The extensive family of the freeborn James Webb, b 1820, of Caroline County.. The cabin of James Webb was restored and still stands; he has many documented descendants in Caroline County and Pennsylvania. Among these was his son, the school teacher John R Webb of Caroline County. A kinswoman may be the free born woman Delia Ann Webb, born about 1832, who was granted a freedom certificate in 1847 inCaroline County.
Enslaved Webbs include:
On 26 August 1825, James Webb, runaway from Thomas Rinngold of Kent Island, Queen Anne’s County, was jailed in Easton, Talbot County. Three years later, on 17 May 1828, a Jim Webb (yellow mulatto) perhaps the same person, escaped from the same enslaver Thomas Rinngold.
I would be grateful for assistance in further tracing Jacob and Sarah Gardener, Antigua George and Kate Webb, and their descendants.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Public Ethnography Lab, American University, Washington DC
Kevin Dumouchelle, Curator, National Museum of African Art. Curator, Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art. Editor, Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art (Smithsonian Books, 2026, in press.)
Serubiri Moses, Curator, Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art. 
Siwa Mgoboza. Curator and artist. Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa .
Paul Emmanuel, artist (Johannesburg, South Africa) Featured work: 
Ṣọlá Olúlòde, artist (Brixton, UK) Featured works: Ode to Joy; Stitched to You. 
Tobi Onabolu is a London-born artist-filmmaker, writer, and cultural producer, based in Grand Popo, Benin Republic. His interdisciplinary practice spans moving image, installation, performance, sound, and the creation of long-term cultural platforms, approaching art as a living process rather than the production of isolated objects. Director of Dear Black Child . See: 
Mark Auslander 