#browntoferguson

Humbled to have such amazing partners in change…and to the students I had the privilege of learning from in #Memphis at the Lorraine Motel ( @ncrmuseum ) where we yesterday eulogized the 50 year anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. In that place of historical trauma the @sitesofconscience brought King’s legacy of love to life at their #YouthSummit. @andrew.fearnside.art helped me bring the students’ vision to life … their collective asset map … their power … on paper. Read about some of the process at Andrew’s blog in my profile website. #AllPowerToThePeople #MLK #MLK50 #MartinLutherKing • Regrann from @sitesofconscience - Thank you @HakimBe for passing along this gorgeous image - the product of an asset mapping session he led last November @ncrm as part of our #BrownToFerguson Youth Summit. Bellamy, a poet and activist, helped young people identify their own strengths and capabilities as they become leaders in their communities. #BrownToFerguson aims to create dialogue and action on the discriminatory and punitive treatment young minorities receive in school, treatment that often shadows them for a lifetime. @easternstate @brvb_nhs @levinemuseum @mohistorymuseum @jahhm1889 - #regrann (at National Civil Rights Museum)

Terri Lee Freeman, President of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, explains why talk ain’t cheap, in fact dialogue is the only pathway to radical change...then and now. Dialogue is the first step. Originally shared with students and adult collaborators at the 2017 Brown V. Board to Ferguson Youth Summit (a project of the International Coalition for Sites of Conscience). 

Proud of this work we have been doing for about a year and a half in partnership with the Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe), Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center (Bernalillo County), Gordon Bernell Charter School, ¡YouthWorks! New Mexico (Santa Fe), Beyond Poetry LLC (Albuquerque) and the International Sites of Conscience (New York, New York). The 3-year initiative is called Brown v. Board of Education to Ferguson and focuses in using the arts to develop young people in to community discussion leaders on the school to prison cycle.

As a consultant and teaching artist on the project, I was asked to write a blog about our work over the past 18 months. Check it out here at the Museum of International Folk Art’s blog.