—  social practice—

April’s social practice as an artist and racial equity practitioner is based largely in circle processes that create spaces for listening, sharing, and learning from one another, with a focus on justice and equity. Much of this has been done as part of her work with The Alluvial Collective (formerly known as the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation), as well as other spaces to lift up voices and provide openings for new individual and community narratives to emerge out of a history of trauma and resistance. These experiences draw on confidential story-sharing, audio and video, oral histories, collaborative memorialization events, and presentations.

One of the collaborative projects she has facilitated is the Lafayette Community Remembrance Project, which focuses on the history of lynching in Lafayette County, Mississippi. It started in May 2017, when a young researcher with the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University named Kyleen Burke brought to the Winter Institute (now The Alluvial Collective) a presentation on Elwood Higginbottom, victim of the last documented lynching in Lafayette County, Mississippi, in 1935. After Burke’s presentation for a group of local residents, the project grew quickly into a collaboration among local community members, researchers based at the University of Mississippi, local Oxford and Lafayette County elected officials, a number of churches, the local branch of the NAACP, the alumni chapter of Phi Beta Sigma, local media outlets, and Higginbottom family descendants.

It has grown to include public events, circle meetings, marker installations, and collaborations with elected officials. The project includes ongoing collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative and its Community Remembrance Project, which focuses on the history of lynching in the United States.

Click here for a timeline of events

Featured media:

• April’s article for the Mississippi Free Press, “Unearthing and Confronting Oxford’s Lynching History With Rev. E.W. Higginbottom Sr.” May 19, 2020

• Vanessa Gregory’s article for New York Times Magazine: “A Lynching’s Long Shadow,” April 25, 2018

• Newsweek: “America's Lynching History: How the Equal Justice Initiative is Helping Counties Acknowledge Terrorism,” November 29, 2018

• For more information, including many new articles and updates, visit our Facebook page.

Facilitation, dialogue, training, workshops
 

Selected Collaborators and Clients

Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (Indianapolis IN)
University of Mississippi Medical Center (Jackson MS)
Equal Justice Initiative (Montgomery AL)
Last Mile Health (Boston MA and Liberia)
Lafayette Community Remembrance Project (Lafayette County MS)
Significant Developments (Jackson MS)
CUNY Law School (New York NY)
Project Pilgrimage (Seattle WA)
Excel By 5 Board (Jackson MS)
The Office of Mayor Mitch Landrieu (New Orleans LA)
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Mississippi Museum of Art (Jackson MS)
FoodCorps Mississippi
Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network