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From Grandpa to Emmett to Trayvon, the trajectory of lynching history has shifted over time in America. When Grandpa was killed in 1916, there was no charges brought and no trial. In 1955, Emmett Till’s murder, there was a trial, but no convictions. And then Trayvon Martin, now you have a trial and not-guilty verdict. All the time you have dead black bodies and nobody is ever convicted for the murders. —Doria Dee Johnson

When Doria Dee Johnson was growing up, a large photo of her great-great- grandfather Anthony Crawford hung above her aunt’s dinner table. Her family would say, “Walk with a sense of pride,” because Grandpa Crawford, as the family called him, defended himself up until his last moments. 

A successful businessman and landowner, Mr. Crawford was lynched in Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1916 after disagreeing with a white store owner over the price of cottonseed that Mr. Crawford brought to the market. His last words were, “I thought I was a good citizen. Give my bankbook to my children.” Following the lynching, the Crawford family fled the South in fear for their lives, leaving behind their 427 acres of prime cotton land.

Ms. Johnson explains that upon visiting the land her family was forced to give up, she felt compelled to become an activist and historian. Today, she is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where her focus is the migration of African Americans from the South to Evanston, Illinois, during the Great Migration. On the one hundredth anniversary of her great-great-grandfather’s lynching, Ms. Johnson, along with two hundred of her family members and the Equal Justice Initiative, erected a memorial to Anthony Crawford in Abbeville. “The story has been denied for so long,” Ms. Johnson said. “But now, if you go to Abbeville City Hall to do business, you have to walk right past Anthony Crawford to do it. You can’t bypass him anymore.”

Click here to hear her story, and explore The Legacy of Lynching at the Brooklyn Museum now through September 3.

Exhaustion Series

What is the value of time and its passing? This compound question drives Sandy Williams, IV’s artistic practice. Williams’s Exhaustion films are a collection of videos in which a subject does something until they cannot continue. It is an ongoing project and so far, his subjects have played a saxophone, treaded water, ran laps around a baseball diamond, passed around a camera, held a glass of water above their head, completed a choreographed dance, and split rocks with a sledge hammer. The only instruction for these activities, a verbal proposition that scores, or structures, the subject’s performance, is to continue performing the specific action until the subject no longer can. In most cases, Williams devises the action for the subjects to complete; however, the dancer choreographed her own movement sequence. The videos, which range from fifteen minutes to two hours and forty-one minutes, show just how long it is physically possible to do certain tasks, opening out onto questions of time and the limits of the body.

When Williams has spoken to his subjects after making the videos, some say they stopped because they were bored while others stopped because they were tired, or their bodies were unable to continue. These subjects thought their bodies were going to give up on them, but somehow, they found an extra burst of energy to continue.

This series, and Williams’s other work, addresses issues of aesthetic form, racial identity, performance, and the body. Williams’s Exhaustion films draw exhaustion and endurance into relation at a time when black bodies endure much more than other bodies. From chattel slavery to present day, African Americans have suffered structural oppression, a condition that continues in the face of claims that the United States is a post-racial—or post-racist—society. Against this historical backdrop, Williams’s Exhaustion series becomes a metaphor for the limits of bodies, black bodies. They cannot endure forever, just as no body can tread water forever.

The camera also plays an important role in this series. In many of the films, the camera is on a tripod, unmoving, simply collecting the image and the surrounding environment as they unfold. Other times, the camera tracks or moves with the subject, giving the audience more insight into the performed actions, even while the screen creates distance between viewer and viewed. These shots position the audience as if they were there in the moment, along with the subject, for the duration of the video. When installed in a gallery, the films play for the entire duration of the video, and spectators come and go as they please. The act of watching the videos in the gallery is a test of endurance similar to the actions being performed. How long will viewers watch? What is gained or missed by watching the videos for a shorter or longer amount of time? Williams’s Exhaustion films facilitate a discussion about the value of time and who dictates what value means, in abstract terms as well as with regard to racially marked bodies. As a result, mundane actions become meditative, highlighting the limits of human consciousness and agency.

Garments to Protect Against the Suspicion of Having a Firearm

Glistening under the lights of the University of Virginia’s Ruffin Gallery, artist Sandy Williams’ Garments to Protect Against the Suspicion of Having a Firearm (vinyl and thread, 2017) seems out of place with the various other pieces of art displayed. A transparent shirt and pair of pants allow onlookers to see right through to one’s body, the outfit seems as if it was taken off of the runway and put on display in the Fralin Art Museum. However, it is a nuanced point about the increased documentation of the brutalization of black bodies by the police and the underlying causes. Like several of his other works, Williams uses his art to deal with black life/experiences, although they are not always as politically charged as this.  William’s Garments to Protect Against the Suspicion of Having a Firearm is especially relevant as it seems as if black life can be extinguished for any reason at all; from selling illegal cigarettes, a busted tail light, or even wearing a hoodie in a more white and affluent neighborhood. Acting almost like a holster, the outfit shows onlookers that the “loaded weapon” that is black bodies is safely put away and poses no threat. It serves to highlight that all those reasons given for the senseless murder of hundreds of innocent black lives are just excuses that are more palatable and appeal to neoliberal white sensibilities.

Police brutality is the result of the fear of black bodies, and no matter one’s education, salary, level of social mobility, or fame will make a black body less threatening. The fact that nobody is wearing the outfit also further illustrates the point that these instances of state-endorsed violence against black bodies are not endemic to lower class black families, but transcend any adjective subsequent to the word black. Respectability politics have been used by both the old guard of black political leaders/pundits (i.e. Al Sharpton) as well as white conservatives and liberals alike to justify countless deaths. Deflections such as this only serve to muddy the waters and detract from getting to the root cause of black death at the hands of police.

Works of art that unpackage the conversations about race and truly delve into the core of the issues can shift conversations on their head, and serve as an essential first step towards trying to address the issue of police brutality. Using art as a critical lens, issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality can be displayed artistically/pictorially and reframe the discussion. As Black Lives Matter continues to evolve, simply protesting will not be enough or writing a think piece in the New York Times a la Shaun King, other mediums of protest and analysis will be needed. Art is a powerful device of cultural exchange and is necessary to both appeal to white allies, as well as take a introspective look at black experience and the current state of affairs. Art has the power to unify, educate, and express, all of which are necessary to combat police brutality and the fear of black bodies in earnest.