2:00 PM | This event is Private.
Her Ink Her Voice
by Gin Hammond
Susie Revels Cayton
Susie Revels was the daughter of Hiram Revels, the first Black U.S Senator, elected in 1870 from Mississippi. As Associate Editor of the black-owned newspaper The Seattle Republican, she published many stories about suffrage during the 1910 Washington campaign and beyond.
Suffrage Timeframe: Though a bit younger than Carmelita, (born 1870), Susie was a contemporary of Emma Smith DeVoe and May Arkwright Hutton during the Washington State campaign.
Before Seattle was a city of tech and towers, it was a city of dreams—and contradictions. At its edge stood Susie Revels Cayton: writer, editor, mother, activist. Her Ink Her Voice follows her journey from Mississippi to the Pacific Northwest, beginning aboard a segregated train in her early twenties and landing in turn-of-the-century Seattle, where she’d shape history with little more than ink, grit, and unstoppable resolve.
Wry, modern, and rooted in historical truth, this original play reimagines Cayton’s world with a fresh lens. Through fictional and historical characters—and Cayton’s own razor-sharp voice—it explores the promise and betrayal of the Reconstruction Era, a time whose echoes feel uncomfortably close to our present. When ten years of Black political progress were undone by a single presidential deal, Susie kept writing. Kept organizing. Kept believing.
A story of persistence, legacy, and the power of the pen, Her Ink Her Voice invites audiences across Washington state to rediscover a woman whose voice refused to be erased—and whose courage still speaks volumes today.
Taylor Freeman, Featured Performer
Taylor Freeman (she/he/they) is a queer multidisciplinary artist from north Texas, currently living in Seattle, WA. Taylor is a 2023 Honors graduate from the University of Washington, with a degree in Drama: Performance and International Studies. Their work and research focuses on storytelling as a site of healing. Her previous work includes puppets (Rey), The Wolves (11), Uncharted Waters: Twelfth Night (Antonia/Valentine), (Anon)ymous (Anon), Eurydice (Eurydice), and performing spoken word with Grammy nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein.
Gin Hammond, Playwright
Gin Hammond is an award-winning Harvard University/Moscow Art Theatre graduate. Gin has been awarded National Endowment for the Arts grants for multiple plays, and her book, Returning the Bones, is a National Indies Excellence Finalist and a Gold Winning INDIES Book of the Year winner. Gin has written, coached, and directed multiple shows, including Zen and the Art of an Android Beatdown and Childfinder for Book-It Repertory Theater, as well as the videogame Post-Human War.
Barbara CallandEr, historian
Barbara Callander, a Seattle-based humanities scholar and performing artist who has been researching and disseminating the history of women’s rights throughout the state of WA and the PNW for over 25 years in conjunction with the creation and presentation of lectures, dramatic biographical performances and other programs about suffrage in Washington, the Northwest, and beyond. Ms. Callander's numerous Humanities presentations over the last three decades have been awarded grants from Humanities Washington, the Washington State Historical Society and ArtsWA, among others.
