ORGANIZERS
REN DAVIDSON SEWARD, artist organizer, created A Memorial Field as a field of data visualization that advocates for policy shifts in policing in America. In response to the trauma sewn by wrongful deaths, she continues to write evidence-based narratives (8-13 words) about the last minutes in unarmed Black Americans’ lives.
ANNA FORSMAN is a human ecologist based in Saranac Lake, New York. She is a graduate of Rutgers University–New Brunswick and holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Policy, Institutions and Behavior. She completed her minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Anna thrives on authenticity, deep connection, and her sincere love for people. In addition to working as a creative consultant and community organizer, Anna is building Second Wind ADK, an organization that explores the human experience through creativity, consciousness, sustenance, and community. www.secondwindadk.com
AFTERWORD
I first want to acknowledge that when we gathered during the summer of 2023 at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site to engage in the Nine Conversations on Equity and Justice, we met on the traditional homelands stolen from the Mohawk Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations of the Iroquois.
I also acknowledge the unwavering support and guidance of Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives!, Stephanie Ratcliffe, Director of The Wild Center, and Ellen Bettmann, formerly of the Anti-defamation League, is a lifelong gift.
Anna and I shared an open invitation with the general public to join us on nine consecutive Thursdays at 3pm for facilitated conversations. We didn’t know what to expect. Could we get people with different points of view to participate in respectful conversation about equity and justice?
Our gratitude amplified every week as seasoned, generous, and dedicated facilitators led groups of several dozen participants through civil discourse around topics often avoided. The nourishing and devoted practice of Shawndel N. Fraser, co-facilitator of the first conversation, brought her back to the Adirondacks from New York City for five of the nine conversations. Her continued enthusiasm to be in dialogue with me and others, to share her trauma-informed and spiritual approach to engagement, and her enriching sense of self-care, continues to ripple out and bring her back to the North Country.
I am indebted to Mike Bishop who was doing doctoral work on community engagement when he first invited me to tell him my genesis story of activism after he visited A Memorial Field. In turn, I invited him to facilitate a Zoom organizing meeting of a pool of potential facilitators in May and June of 2023. Thus was initiated the process of organizing the nine conversations and establishing connections among our facilitators.
I extend words of thanks to New York Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and 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.
Conversation requires practice. A number of participants treated the summer series as a seminar, attending all nine sessions. New and meaningful relationships developed as each one of us became better prepared to initiate dialogue with each other.
The material published here would not have been possible without Anna Forsman’s meticulous notetaking in real time. At the ninth conversation, the participants urged us to create an advocacy tool for community-wide conversation that included recommendations and lessons that we touched on.
There’s nothing like financial support to heighten one’s sense of purpose and focus. For this I thank Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) Artist Employment Project (AEP) that funded employment for up to 300 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers (artists) in collaboration with dozens of community-based organizations across New York State for two years. My participating organization (collaborator) with CRNY was John Brown Lives! which was approaching 25 years of volunteer service as the official Friends Group of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site.
Additional support came from the Statewide Community Regrants program, a regrant 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 can all make the world a better place if we exploit our skillset for good. I envisioned A Memorial Field, planned numerous gatherings to expand its reach, and organized the nine conversations with Anna Forsman, with sincerity of purpose. My sincere thanks to all of the participants who engaged and shared, a courageous act of the heart.
—Ren Davidson Seward 11/22/24
