9 August 2024 was the tenth anniversary of the police murder of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. It sparked protests against police violence in Ferguson and was one of many racist police murders that prompted the creation of a movement known as Black Lives Matter.
A few years later, Apphia Campbell and Meredith Yarbrough wrote the play Woke, a brilliant account of the impact of these events on the imagined, not very political black student Ambrosia, played by Apphia, arriving as a student in St. Louis.
She waves her dad goodbye with the words, “I don’t have to do nothing but eat, drink, sing, stay black and die.” Little did she realise the provocative police action would change her attitude towards the police and the history of the Black struggle in America. This links her experience to the 1970s black female activist Assata Shakur.
Woke has now been reworked as Through the Mud to give a greater presence to Assata, a victim of injustice still on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Through the Mud shifts between Ambrosia, now played by Tinashe Warikandwa, and Assata, performed by Apphia Campbell, told from the point of view of Aphia and Asata.
Ambrosia’s trip to a Ferguson protest as a curious observer standing beneath a tree becomes something more serious when police issue her with a citation falsely claiming she was walking in the road. Such lies were regularly used to raise police funds. It is a tough lesson in corrupt, racist police policies. A 2015 US government report found that 95% of those issued with a citation for their “manner of walking in the roadway” were black, though they were only 65% of the population.
Asata talks about joining the Black Panther Party where “we gave out free breakfasts… and started our own clinics.” She talks about the injustices she suffered and being shot by police. Eventually, she is forced to flee America. She tells us that revolutionaries, “don’t just drop from the moon. They are created by the system.”
It is an inspiring, well performed and often very moving show, with songs from the American Civil Rights Movement.
Raising a clenched fist salute, Asata and Ambrosia finish the event on a darkened stage by singing together the classic anthem of anti-racist struggle: “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”.