Bob the Drag Queen has brought Harriet Tubman back to life with urgency and humor in their new book, Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert.
Bob spoke with Blavity ahead of the book’s March 25 release about how they came up with the ingenious idea of a world in which America’s historical figures have come back to life, leading the book’s main character Darnell, a hip-hop producer on a career downturn, to come face to face with the woman called Moses. Even stranger is that Tubman wants his help to create a rap album about her life.
They said that they came up with the idea for the story when they were part of the 2018 Berkeley Repertory Theatre production of Angels in America.
“It just kind of came to me. I thought to myself, I would love to hear Harriet Tubman’s album, which I know sounds crazy, right?” they said. “I mean, I would not call myself a history buff, but I do have an obsession with Harriet Tubman and her story because it doesn’t even sound believable, like when you hear all the stuff that she actually did, it doesn’t even sound real, this woman’s life, right? So I began having this obsession with her and listening to every biography about her, seeing every depiction.”
“I also became really intrigued by the fact that she had only been depicted in one major motion picture [at the time], and that was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer. And then after that, she was depicted in the film with Cynthia Erivo and she was also depicted in The Good Lord Bird on Showtime with Ethan Hawke and Daveed Diggs,” they added. “So there’s been a lot of Harriet Tubman buzz since then, but I’ve always been obsessed with Harriet Tubman. When we were younger and we’d all have to do our Black History Month reports, I would always do Harriet Tubman every single time because the more you learn about her, you’re like, ‘My God, this is so unreal.'”
What anchors the book
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert might seem like it’s based on a wild concept, but it contains a multitude of facts about the real-life abolitionist hero. Bob talked about how Tubman was actually very young when she made her many trips back and forth to the South from the North. She led the Combahee River Raid between her late 20s and early 30s. And throughout it all, she maintained her secrecy from the people salivating to kill her. Between being called Moses, a spirit, and other names, no one knew it was Tubman who was saving enslaved people from lives in captivity. On top of that, Tubman had a head injury from her former slaveowner, an injury that gave her seizures, but also gave her the ability to hear God, to paraphrase Tubman herself.
Bob also talked about what it was like to write as Tubman, even though we don’t know what Tubman actually sounded like.
Because Tubman couldn’t read or write, Bob said, she told her story over and over at abolitionist meetings. But, “people are retelling her story and changing her voice, [which is] a pretty common thing. She [might have] told her story to a woman and then that woman went and kind of sprinkled in some more stuff. It’s kind of like the very famous ‘Ain’t I A Woman’ speech. Because Sojourner Truth didn’t speak that way. English wasn’t even her first language [but] the truth [is] apparently she spoke immaculate, like the Queen’s English. But when they were retelling her story, they were like, ‘No one’s gonna buy this.’ They knew people would buy it if she said, ‘Ain’t I a woman’ so they just added that in there.”
”We truly have no clue” what Tubman sounded like, Bob continued. “So I really had to just kind of use composites of people in my life, people I’ve seen through media. My mom was [also] in there a little bit.”
Queer Black history and finding freedom
The book also highlights how Black history isn’t just the one story about slavery. There’s also queer Black history, such as William Dorsey Swann, considered the first person to identify as a “queen of drag” and the first American to lead a gay resistance group.
“Black people are [the] actual architects of this country. And not just architects, but also the contractors and the laborers and the taste makers and the interior designers and the landscapers,” said Bob. “We played such a pivotal role in this country and it’s really interesting how people like [with] Bayard Rustin and Langston Hughes, their queerness just gets completely scrubbed from their history.”
Learning about that history helps Darnell, the main character, learn more about where he fits into the fabric of society. Loosely based on Bob’s own experiences coming out, Darnell feels like he’s constantly at odds with society and internally battles with how to truly be himself. Harriet sees him as her next mission, and she takes it upon herself to deliver him to freedom at all costs—even if it includes putting her trusty gun in his face.
“When I was originally writing this, it was actually a play and it was a concert. Think like Hedwig and the Angry Inch or Lady Day at Emerson Bar and Grill, or Altar Boys, or Six,” they said. “But then when trying to write that as a book, it became impossible to write 50,000 words in the context of one concert. It felt insurmountable. And then I thought to myself, I think it actually might be more interesting to talk about the writing of the album than it would be to read about a performance of the album. So that’s when I created this character, Darnell, who’s loosely based on me.”
“He’s much more meek than I am, he has more scruples than I do, quite frankly,” Bob continued. “He holds his tongue more than I ever would. And maybe I should actually take from the character that I created and actually be a little bit more [like that] in real life. It’d probably save me from some drama. But I created this character because instead of like trying to create this whole world where Harriet is doing all this stuff…I chose to have someone who’s perceiving Harriet Tubman, but then also I get to humanize her by acknowledging how much we glorify this woman to a degree where it doesn’t allow her to be fallible, you know?”
Religion, trauma and The Underground Railroad
Darnell’s struggles are rooted in his religious trauma, and Harriet’s religious conviction triggers Darnell throughout the book.
”I grew up in Southern Baptist in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. My most of my family [except for] maybe one or two people are pretty strongly Christian, specifically Baptist. …I didn’t want to [address religion in the book] the way Caldwell, Bob the Drag Queen would. …When people feel salty about me and my take on religion, it is not lost on me that that is offensive and I don’t care that it is offensive. But when writing it in this book, I didn’t want to do a take down piece on religion. I just wanted to provide a perspective that there are Black people who love religion, there are Black people who have been hurt by Christianity, and there are Black people who don’t know how to feel about it. Darnell doesn’t really know how to feel about it.”
“…The book is about the feeling of freedom and finding out what freedom means to you,” they continued. “You know, in the song Queen of the Underground, there’s a lyric that goes ‘Home of the brave, land of the free, but what what the f*** does that mean to me?’ And I said that pretty early on in the book because a big part of the book is about how Darnell doesn’t truly feel free. Harriet can sense that, and Harriet is in the business of getting people the freedom. And she cannot leave Darnell until he’s free. And as you know, when you are on the Underground Railroad with Harriet, you, you’re not allowed to turn back. You cannot turn back. So she will not allow Darnell to leave, which is why she pulls a gun on him. You know? She, she, she points the blicky right at him, and she’s like, ‘You got a journey and you’re not allowed to leave yet.'”
Bob’s hopes and dream casting for Harriet
Harriet’s push to get Darnell to freedom—accepting himself and being outwardly proud of who he is—is also loosely based on Bob’s own coming out story. Like how Bob described being dismayed that their family already figured out his sexuality before his dramatic reveal, Darnell is equally shocked when Tubman and her crew—including her brother, freed slaves that have become found family, and the real-life figure Benjamin Lay—literally don’t care about Darnell being gay. The moment recalls when Bob went to Selma, Alabama, during an episode of HBO docuseries We’re Here.
“I have this interaction with actual foot soldiers from Edmund Pettus Bridge who were there on Bloody Sunday. And I gave them preconceived notions thinking that they were gonna be judging me because I’m gay and because there were these older black women, but they were like, ‘You don’t know what we’ve done,'” they said. “One of the women pulled me aside and she was like, ‘Just so you know, I’m the founder of this company that would literally drive people back and forth to their HIV and AIDS treatments in the ’90s. You judged us because we’re old Black women. You thought we’d just be over here judging you ’cause you’re gay. But the truth is you don’t know what we’ve done for your community. You don’t know if we’re gay.’ They were not gay, but I was closed off because I was afraid of being judged, and that’s what Darnell is doing in this scenario.”
Bob said that he hopes that if Tubman did ever come back and read their book, they’d hope she’d like the book. But, they said, “the truth is I might be getting it all wrong, for all I know. Harriet Tubman might think hip hop is trash, you know what I mean? For all I know, she might be like, ‘That’s the devil’s music.’ I have no clue what she would say. But it’s fun for me to be able to claim that part of history for myself, to be able to take pride in what she’s accomplished for me and how I’ve been able to take advantage of that. Would she be judging me? I don’t know. She might think I’m serving. She might be my biggest fan. Who knows?”
Another person who could think Bob is serving: Doechii, the artist Bob would love to take up the job of portraying Tubman if their book ever becomes a film.
“I keep saying it, but I’m kind of scared to say it because what if she doesn’t think I’m cool? But in my mind if I ever got my dream cast, I would love to have Doechii play Harriet Tubman. That would just be the pièce de résistance for me, honestly.”
For Bob, Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert is a chance for readers to not only be entertained but gain pride in the history that has shaped America for 200 years.
“I hope that people can take this information and specifically want to learn more about Harriet Tubman specifically, and about queer people and our contributions to history and the world, what we have created and done for ourselves,” they said. “What we’ve made out of nothing, especially Black queer people. I hope people are taking this and wanting to learn more. I always want people to just know more about Harriet Tubman. I just think she’s obviously more amazing than amazing can be. And any opportunity to convince someone to go and research her, I am [happy]. I’m gonna be her biggest cheerleader until my last breath.”
