ORGANIZERS
REN DAVIDSON SEWARD, multimedia artist, created A Memorial Field to advocate for policy shifts in policing in America. She did not anticipate that writing evidence-based narratives (8-13 words) about the last minutes in an unarmed Black American’s life to wear as a sandwich board in a local demonstration would grow to a four-year project and a field of over 100 plaques targeting police violence.
ANNA FORSMAN is Arts & Cultural Programming Director for John Brown Lives! and founder of The People’s Chorus, thriving on authenticity, deep connection, and her sincere love for bringing people together through song. Her meticulous note taking during the nine conversations on equity and justice made it possible to respond to participant’s request to publish an advocacy tool for community-wide conversation that included the recommendations and lessons that we touched on.
AFTERWORD
At the John Brown Farm State Historic Site, we acknowledge that we come together on the traditional homelands stolen from the Mohawk Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations of the Iroquois.
I am grateful for the unwavering support for A Memorial Field and gentle guidance of Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives! and the encouragement of Stephanie Ratcliffe, Director of The Wild Center, and Ellen Bettmann, formerly of the Anti-defamation League, for the “Nine Conversations on Equity and Justice.”
When we shared an open invitation to the general public to join us and enlisted seasoned, generous, and dedicated facilitators to lead groups of several dozen participants through civil discourse, we presented topics easily avoided in social situations. The nourishing and devoted practices of our facilitators proved enriching for all. Conversation requires practice. New and meaningful relationships developed as each one of us became better prepared to initiate dialogue with each other. A number of participants treated the summer series as a seminar, and attended all nine sessions.
Mike Bishop was in the last phase of his doctoral work on community engagement, collecting genesis stories of activists. He led a pool of potential facilitators to establish professional connections. Shawndel N. Fraser, co-facilitator of the first conversation, came her back to the Adirondacks from New York City for five of the nine conversations. Her contagious enthusiasm to be in dialogue with me and others, to share her trauma-informed and spiritual approach to engagement, and her practice of promoting self-care, continues to ripple out in the North Country.
Financial support heightens one’s sense of purpose and focus. For this we thank Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) Artist Employment Project (AEP) that funded collaborations between 300 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers (artists) with dozens of community-based organizations across New York State for two years. My collaboration was with John Brown Lives!, a 25-year-old group that promotes social justice and human rights through reflection and activism, awareness and exploration, kinship and individual action.
Additional support came from New York Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and from the Statewide Community Regrants Program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts. We are indebted to the staff at the John Brown Farm: Brendan Mills, site manager; John O’Neil, groundskeeper; and Cheryl Craft and Patrick Hamilton-Bruen, historic site interpreters, for their responsiveness and respect during the conversations.
By applying one’s skillset for good, with sincerity of purpose, we engaged courageous people in acts of the heart. The conversations were a profoundly moving experience.
—Ren Davidson Seward 11/22/24
