5%

For the last 15 weeks, I’ve been working on The New School’s First People of Color archive called “The 5%”. “The 5%” is an archive that dissects an underlying theme of the term “New Negro” and what that looks like today. This term was first introduced to me by Booker T. Washington’s text A New Negro for a New Century. The methods and attitudes of the thought within this book entirely changed my perception as an African American artist. I am the result of generations of struggle and adversity, and I think it’s essential to create positive work that pushes an unbiased image of people of color. Just like Washington's effort in the 1920s, which promoted a renewed sense of racial pride and cultural self-expression, my thesis embodies these same values. My archive is an illustrated documentation of people of color within the student body of The New School. The diversity report for colored students on campus is 5%. I believe it’s essential to archive colored creatives in order to highlight the progression, since the 1920 and the Harlem Renaissance, and to continue Washington's phenomenology behind his book A New Negro for a New Century. My thesis displays 35 life-sized portraits, journals of my progress, as well as the signatures and majors of all represented people of color on campus, which will be printed and bound into a book, then donated to The New School’s archive and New York Black Archive The Schomberg Learning Center.

My project is an attempt to lift up the many voices of the creatives who face the uncomfortable aspects of their everyday lives, who interrogate these aspects with their work, and imagine how it could be. In the future, I plan to continue to build upon this concept of documenting unrepresented people of color in public and private spaces. An archive of this kind has the power to instill empathy among people of different races and backgrounds, and across time and space–a compassion that is necessary for justice. I hope this series and publication offers insight into the history of Washington's efforts, cultivates an understanding of our present, and inspires both empathy and progress in the days to come.