Ring Shout

Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Black racism and violence, enslavement, and hate crimes such as lynching.

In Notation 15, amateur folklorist Emma Kraus collects an oral history from Uncle Will, a formerly enslaved man. Will recounts how, hidden away from their former enslavers, Black Americans celebrated their freedom with music and movement called a “Shout” or “Ring Shout” when Union soldiers announced Emancipation.

Resistance fighter Maryse Boudreaux, along with Sadie Watkins and Cordelia “Chef” Lawrence, are in downtown Macon, Georgia, during a Ku Klux Klan parade to capture Ku Kluxes, monsters conjured by the Klan. Sadie suspects government involvement in the existence of these monsters. While waiting, Maryse reads a book of Black folklore that Martin, her brother, gave her before his death by lynching. The fighters lure the Ku Kluxes with a roasted dog, a favorite of the monsters, and place it in an alley with a silver-laden bomb. Three Ku Kluxes take the bait, leaving them with grisly wounds, but they manage to reconstitute themselves and chase the women. Maryse gets separated from the other two and must jump through a warehouse window as a Ku Klux pursues her.