RACIAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC MEMORY
I partner with racial justice activists and coalitions to uncover the legacy of racial terror in my home state of Tennessee. Through archival research and participatory design, I collaborate on initiatives that seek to remember, reconcile, and repair, our history of racial violence.
In my GSD thesis, a timeline of White supremacist monument construction emphasizes a surge from 1900 to 1920--coinciding with legalization of segregation, the KKK's resurgence, and the peak of lynching--and an increase during the Civil Rights Movement. This pattern illustrates the design of these monuments to assert a hateful, racial hierarchy and suppress Black rights.
In my GSD thesis, a map of Health Sciences Park, highlighting the vacant site of the White supremacist monument, includes reflections from park visitors and planners advocating for a thoughtful transformation.
The Next Southern Landmark ThesisThe Next Southern Landmark
This thesis explores processes for redesigning sites of former White supremacists monuments through a case study in Memphis, Tennessee. Focused on a dismantled monument within a nine-acre park, I partner with Lynching Sites Project (LSP) of Memphis, a coalition of teachers, faith leaders, local historians and other community members committed to memorializing victims of racial violence. Together, we ask: how might Southern communities reimagine and redesign sites once representing racial terror? As the urban planner partnering with this coalition, I explore the planner’s role in creating inclusive processes to reclaim former public spaces with symbols of hate.
Uncovering Our Legacy of Slavery
This project honors the lives of enslaved laborers who built Calvary Episcopal Church, my childhood church. Over 3,800 lives were trafficked in the present day church parking lot at enslaver Nathan Bedford Forrest's market — less than 20 feet away from the church altar. I am collaborating with fellow church members, local historians, faith leaders to uncover the stories of the people sold here and of the people in power who enslaved them. This history will be memorialized in a future monument and accompanying archive. For more information, see memorial to enslaved laborers.
Tennesseans for Historical Justice
As a board member of Tennesseans for Historical Justice, I collaborated to organize racial justice coalitions statewide and build the largest database of known victims of lynching and racial terror in Tennessee. With archival research by Kyra Wilson, this mapping project shed light on previously untold stories of victims of racial violence in Tennessee.
Click here to access the map and data, and explore its links to over 1,000 primary sources statewide.