A Q&A Interview with Alice and Emily Haworth-Booth
In their book Protest! How People Have Come Together to Change the World sisters Alice and Emily Haworth-Booth cover the global history of protest from 1170 BCE, when workers on the pyramids in Egypt went on strike for more food, to the present day, with the school strikes for climate. With graphic-novel style illustrations by Emily, it’s an entertaining and accessible guide to protests across the globe.
Alice and Emily answered our questions about their book.
Describe the book for us and in particular, how you came to write it together.
Protest! is an illustrated history of how people have come together to change the world. It begins with a pyramid builders’ strike in Ancient Egypt and traces the history of rebellion all the way through to the present day, with the School Strikes for Climate, XR and Black Lives Matter. We tried to find the story in each protest, keeping the focus on groups of people acting together rather than on famous individuals. We discovered that what the book is really about is friendship and community.
We’ve been inspired by protests from the past ever since we became involved in activism ourselves in our twenties. Emily has written about protest and dissent in her children’s books and, as our publishers knew of our shared love of activism and collaboration, they suggested we take on writing Protest! together. We’re so glad they did – working on it has been a wonderful experience.
The book is dedicated to your ‘rebellious’ parents and you mention going on the march against the Iraq War in 2003. Were you conscious of the importance of being heard when growing up?
Our parents have always brought social justice to the table, and in their retirement they have become full time activists for a range of causes from the climate to saving the NHS. One of the biggest influences on us growing up were the books and art that they encouraged us to read and look at. They read us books like The Tale of Two Bad Mice and Alice in Wonderland which question power structures and are full of gleeful rebellion. As we got older we saw through their jobs in the art world how much our parents care about voices finding expression in lots of different ways. Seeing how many ways there were to express yourself was really important and political.
How did you go about compiling the book, how did you choose the protests and protestors that you did?
We had a vague outline in our heads when we began – there were certain things we had long been passionate about that we knew we wanted to include, like the Suffragettes and the civil rights movement, and from there we filled in the outline with movements we knew less about. It was so fascinating finding out about these amazing moments in history when ordinary people rose up, especially reading testimonials from people who were there. We were always looking out for the details that bring movements to life, like how people were feeling on a particular day, what they had for breakfast, and the strange things the people in power were getting up to (like buying lots of shoes). Because we wanted the book to have examples from around the world, we left out some more well-known protests, to make space for others that are less talked about. We included tactics pages on themes like noise, art and gardening at the end of every chapter because there were so many more protests that we wanted to include – especially smaller ways to make a difference. It really struck us when we were researching the book that protest is something that is happening almost continually, and the book could have been five times as long, but then we never would have finished it!
Do you have a favourite protest/protestor?
It’s very hard to choose a favourite – the longer campaigns like the civil rights and anti-Apartheid movements are so inspiring for their persistence, creativity and impact. At the same time we wanted to include protests that were less outwardly ‘successful’ because they show that protest isn’t just about achieving political goals but also about creating community, living joyfully together and making the world you want to see, even if it’s temporary. In this respect some of our favourites are the Diggers who took back the land to grow their own food in seventeenth century England and the Ghost Dance of the Native peoples resisting settler colonialism in nineteenth century America.
We also discovered lots of fun examples of ways to protest creatively in small ways, like the jazz musicians in Denmark gathering to play ‘bad music’ at every public appearance of the far-right politician Rasmus Paludan, or the tiny speakers playing protest songs that activists hid inside rubbish bins in Syria a few years ago.
Do you have a favourite illustration in the book? Can you describe it and how you created it?
Some of our favourite illustrations are the ones with speech bubbles, which were so fun to write as well as to draw. On the spread ‘Fight for Finery’ about the Roman Women’s March in 195 BCE, we imagined powerful men lounging around eating decadent snacks while deciding that all their problems were down to women wearing colourful clothing and too much jewellery. It was really enjoyable drawing the facial expressions of the self-satisfied men and the exasperated women listening from behind the pillars. Another favourite is the ‘France is Bored’ spread about the May ‘68 protests, because of the way the text sits inside the columns of the building, and the small details of the people in the crowd.
All the drawings began as pencil sketches inspired by a mix of sources from online image research in the form of photographs, films or paintings. As well as being co-author Alice also designed the book, so we discussed the early sketches and how the text would sit in or around the illustrations. When the final composition was agreed, Emily would trace the final line on a lightbox, adding the ink washes on a separate layer. With so many illustrations to create, lots of the final drawings were coloured by our talented friend, the illustrator Rachel Stubbs, who worked with us to make sure the book had a consistent palette throughout.
Will you work on another book together?
We would love to write another book together. We’re not sure what it will be about yet – but we don’t think we’ll ever get bored of the themes of rebellion, creativity and community.
Thanks to Alice and Emily for answering our questions.
Protest! How People Have Come Together to Change the World is published by Pavilion Books, £10.99 hbk