Rebecca Hall

Dr. Rebecca Hall is a scholar, activist and educator, who writes and speaks on the history of race, gender, law and resistance, as well as on climate justice and intersectional feminist theory. Her recent highly-acclaimed graphic novel, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, weaves history and memoir that focuses on slave revolts in the Middle Passage and in New York City and her own quest to uncover this unwritten history. Wake went viral when it started as a Kickstarter campaign, earning coverage in Hyperallergic and Bustle. Dr. Hall has spoken about her work and Wake to eager audiences at the National Antiracism Teach In, the Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival and at Black Gotham’s “Nerdy Thursdays” at the New York Historical Society. Wake was selected as Steph Curry's June Literati Book Club Pick. An Indie Bestseller, Wake has also received glowing reviews from The New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian, calling the graphic novel “stunning,” “powerful,” and “a must-read.”

As a lawyer representing low-income tenants and homeless families for eight years, Rebecca bore witness to how her clients’ race, class and gender deformed the possibilities of their receiving justice through the legal system. On a quest for a deeper understanding of these structures, she pursued a PhD in history at UC Santa Cruz. Her areas of research include the legal history of slavery and the slave trade, African American women’s history, and current legacies of slavery. Rebecca has taught at U.C. Santa Cruz, Berkeley Law, UC Berkeley’s history department and at the University of Utah.