Remembering a First Love: A Story 26 Years in the Making

Christine Cowley reads a poem she wrote from her bright, yellow notebook. Photo by Natalie Demaree for Covering Religion.

Originally published April 14, 2024 for Covering Religion

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland — Christine Cowley still remembers what it felt like to lose her first love. She was just 19 when the young man she loved, Colm Keenan, was killed by a British army patrol in this divided city. But for more than 50 years, she’s kept that part of her life secret.

“One of the hardest things in my life was coming to terms with this,” she said, tears filling her bright blue eyes.

It didn’t happen all at once. As Cowley got married and raised a family, she kept her secret buried deep inside. It wasn’t until after her children were grown that she began considering sharing her story. In 2020, she shared a short poem she’d written about Keenan anonymously in a stage presentation at the local Playhouse Theatre. Then, in a recent conversation over a scone and tea in a Derry café, Cowley revealed herself as the author and opened up about her pain for the first time.

Cowley grew up in a Catholic family in Derry during The Troubles, a 30-year period of violent sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestant unionists who wanted the province to remain part of the United Kingdom and Roman Catholic nationalists who wanted to be part of the republic of Ireland.

She met Keenan when they were both 16. She was studying at Thornhill Grammar School, an all-girls school in Derry, and he was at St. Columb’s College, a nearby all-boys school, she said. Over the next three years, Cowley would come to know Keenan as studious, creative and gentle. 

Both Cowley and Keenan were Catholic, but the Keenans were far more active in Republican politics. While Cowley’s parents loved Keenan, they knew about his family’s radical politics and worried about her safety, she said. Keenan’s dad, Seán, was chairman of the Derry Citizens Defence Association in 1969, and would play a pivotal role in the events that led to the creation of Free Derry.

“They believed so much in a united country,” said Cowley. “My family weren’t really like that.”

While her family too hoped to see a united Ireland, they didn’t believe in going so far as to take up arms, she said.

On Sunday, January 30, 1972, violence peaked in Derry as British paratroopers opened fire on civilians in the Catholic part of town, killing 13 and injuring 14 others. The day came to be known as Bloody Sunday, and ushered in the darkest year of the conflict — with over 450 people killed and nearly 5,000 people injured throughout Northern Ireland.

“The whole ethos of the city changed that day,” said Cowley, adding that the event led many men and women in the community to join the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

On March 14, Keenan and his best friend, Eugene McGillan, were shot by British Army patrol in the Bogside area of Derry. According to Irish news sources, both men were unarmed.

Cowley was heartbroken. The following days were hazy, but what she does remember is the tri-colored flag that was displayed at his funeral and the pain she felt piercing her heart and stomach when she saw his body, she said.

Over the coming months, her grief would lead her through some major life decisions, like applying to finish her nurse training in County Armagh, just to get out of Derry. 

“I wasn’t conscious, but when I think back on it, that was the way that I survived,” she said.

As a melancholic smile stretched across her face, Cowley said life has a way of continuing. And it did for her — she became a successful nurse, married her husband Pat, moved back to Derry and raised her four children. 

When Cowley mentioned Keenan in passing to her family, she said they were supportive. But she never truly revealed the impact he had on her. “I just got on with life,” she said.

In her loss and in her silence, Cowley is not alone. Although this month marks 26 years of relative peace in Northern Ireland, with the Good Friday Agreement putting an end to much of the violence in 1998, hundreds of survivors are only in recent years opening up about what they lived through during The Troubles.

Intimately involved with this process is Norma Patterson, a therapist at WAVE Trauma Center, one of the few places in Northern Ireland working specifically with survivors of The Troubles. She explained that many people keep living as if they’re still in the war because of the impact trauma has on the nervous system. But now that many survivors are older and the busyness of life has started to slow down, people have room to process.

“They can begin to think ‘okay, maybe I don’t have to just survive anymore,’” she said.

In Derry, community members have started looking to the arts as a means of healing, said Kieran Smyth, community relations officer at The Playhouse Derry. 

Smyth heads a program called Leaders for Peace, designed to encourage self-care and peacebuilding strategies through storytelling. He said that while it seems counter intuitive that healing can come through reliving a traumatic experience, the opportunity to do so as means of creating art often empowers people. 

In 2020, when the Irish playwright Damien Gorman came to town, several survivors had the opportunity to share their story publicly. Working with Leaders for Peace, Gorman invited anyone with an association to the year 1972 to join his new production, called “Anything Can Happen 1972: Voices from the Heart of the Troubles.”

Getting people to open up about their experiences was no easy feat; many chose to include their stories on the condition of anonymity. Actor Pat Lynch played the role of The Caretaker, a narrator-type character who showed up multiple times throughout the play to perform anonymous stories.

At that time, Christine Cowley was one of the people who chose to have her poem performed by Lynch. Her poem was about a moment when she thought she saw her lost love, Keenan, and even though she had spoken about it to her family before, she still felt strange sharing about it publicly, even under the cloak of anonymity.  At one point, Cowley almost pulled her submission entirely.

“After this length of time of being married to my husband, I felt it was disloyal,” she said.

Cowley said that Gorman encouraged her to tell the story, and her husband thought it was a nice story. In September, the production opened. It was broadcast to the public because of the pandemic. Cowley only saw it once, surrounded by a group of her closest girlfriends. 

“Most of the words I didn’t hear. It was weird to hear someone else read my words,” she said.

Nearly four years after the production, Cowley’s feelings about sharing her story have changed. In recent months, it had been on her mind to own those words, she said. 

She said she’d encountered angels throughout her life in different people, and some of her more recent supernatural-feeling encounters emboldened her to tell her story as her own. 

“I love the concept of angels,” Cowley said from her table at the café. “For me, they’re guides.”

With steady hands, Cowley flipped to a page in a bright yellow notebook where she’d written the poem four years ago. At first, she was timid, realizing that in the busy café in a town as small as Derry, she could run into anyone she knew. She put one hand over the side of her face and began reading with a tension in her voice:

“Did you just walk by me then

In the daylight

Or was that a dream

My heart surged with sadness

Tears ran down my cheeks

At the vision I had just seen.

Please, oh please, look over here.

This yearning is unreal

Your hair, your body

Your clothes the same!

My mouth wide open, to call your name”

Cowley moved her hand away from her face and continued, but this time, with a softened voice:

“You turned my love

Your loving eyes met mine

They melted like snow

Through my body

To stay with me for all time”

At the end of her poem, she lifted her teary eyes from the page, coming out of her trance. 

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she concluded. “It’s actually something to be very proud of, but it’s taken a long time to come out.”

A ‘political issue’: Arkansas becomes the latest state to target AP African American Studies

Little Rock Central High School is one of six Arkansas schools offering AP African American History for local credit only after the state's Department of Education decided it would not count towards graduation credit. Photo by Natalie Demaree for Facing South.

Originally published September 26, 2023 for Facing South

Two days before the first day of school, the Arkansas Department of Education sent the state’s educators into a scramble with a last-minute decision that Advanced Placement African American Studies would not count towards graduation credit.

The state’s Department of Education said its Aug. 11 decision was based on its interpretation of the LEARNS Act — Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ (R-Ark.) controversial signature piece of legislation, signed into law in March. The legislation, which created a school voucher program, increased pay for teachers, and set a new state literacy standard, also required the state’s Department of Education to review and identify materials that would “indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory,” and annul or amend those materials.

Arkansas is the latest in a string of states, including several in the South, who have placed AP African American history courses under review or banned them entirely. As of June 2023, 20 states have approved or proposed legislation limiting the way race is taught in schools, according to an analysis by EducationWeek.

In 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act, or the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which restricts how K–12 schools discuss race and racism, among other limitations on workplace training or educational material related to race and gender. In his defense of the act, DeSantis has invoked critical race theory, an academic framework that understands racism as a systemic issue in American society. Critical race theory has often been used by GOP officials as a political flashpoint to refer to any race-related education. Despite DeSantis’s claims, several public school districts in the state have said CRT was never taught in K-12 schools. 

Earlier this year, the Florida Department of Education also banned the AP African American History course from Florida schools for violating Florida law, deeming that it “significantly lacks educational value,” according to a January 12 letter to the College Board.

Educators and academics have argued that laws like these restrict candid conversations about race and racism in America. Some teachers have faced consequences — losing jobs in certain cases — for teaching about race and racism. In South Carolina, an English teacher was reported for teaching a book about race, and in Texas, a principal was put on paid administrative leave and eventually resigned after being accused of teaching critical race theory.

Historically, public school curriculums in many Southern states have been shaped by Confederate and conservative political ideologies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the end of Reconstruction, Lost Cause propaganda has appeared in state standards and textbooks.

Abul Pitre, professor and chair of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University, the longest established department of its kind in the country, said the debate against critical race theory, predominantly taking place in public schools, uses critical race theory as a “smokescreen” when it is really attacking Black studies as a whole.

“You leave [Black people] out of the curriculum, you leave their stories out, you leave their histories out,” he said. “When you begin to do that, you essentially erase that population of people.”

State’s timing questioned

The timing of the decision by the Arkansas Department of Education to not count AP African American Studies for credit sparked confusion among some educators, who questioned why a curriculum change had not been brought during the summer months.

The Arkansas Department of Education visited Little Rock Central High School in January to review the plans for the course, said April Reisma, president of the Arkansas Educators Association.

“Nothing was said,” Reisma told Facing South. “Everything seemed to be fine.”

But just before the start of the semester, the state pulled the rug out from under teachers. The Arkansas Department of Education presented schools with two options, one educator told Facing South: They could either pivot to a state-approved African American History course or offer the AP course as an elective only.

The course framework for AP African American Studies outlines four themes students will learn, based on what African American Studies professors, researchers, and teachers agree should be in an introductory, college-level course in the field. Those themes include migration and the African diaspora; intersections of identity; creativity, expression, and the arts; and resistance and resilience.

“It was not a great feeling at all,” said Jeremy Owoh, superintendent of the Jacksonville Pulaski North School District, of the state’s decision. His school district serves over 4,000 students in central Arkansas. “It definitely caused a lot of moving parts to start happening.”

Owoh said thirty-five students were registered for the class at Jacksonville High School, the only high school in the district.

All six Arkansas schools piloting the course this year — Little Rock Central High School, North Little Rock High School, North Little Rock Center of Excellence, Jacksonville High School, The Academies at Jonesboro High School and eStem Charter High School — are still offering the Advanced Placement course for local credit. This means that while the course will not count toward the history credit required by the state, it will count toward elective credit as required by local school districts in Arkansas.

But in a letter sent Aug. 21, Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva told the schools still offering the course to send materials to the state Education Department for review. Oliva, who formerly worked as senior chancellor in the Florida Department of Education under DeSantis, has been a key figure in the Arkansas controversy. In his letter, Oliva pointed to themes in the class’s framework such as “‘intersections of identity’ and ‘resistance and resilience’” that “may not comply with Arkansas law.”

C.C. Smith, who teaches AP African American Studies to a class of 11 at The Academies at Jonesboro High School, called the state’s decision to drop the AP course a “political issue.”

Smith has worked at Jonesboro High School for 20 years, and this year marks his second year teaching the pilot AP course. When Smith’s school district was presented with the curriculum, they asked him to teach the course since he had already been teaching a general African American History class, he said.

Smith first found out about the Department of Education’s decision to not count the class for credit in a group message with his principal and other school counselors on the Friday before school. However, Smith said he wasn’t too concerned about the decision at the time.

“I’m giving the AP people credit,” said Smith. “We got their curriculum, and the way they set it out is going to be pretty hard for anybody to find indoctrination.”

Smith said the main difference between his general African American Studies course and the AP course is the opportunity for students to learn from primary sources rather than a textbook.

“They get a chance to see documents that highlight the abolitionist movement,” Smith said. “They get to see documents that highlight the long civil rights movement. They get to see songs and poems that help break down the struggles that African Americans had.”

Arkansas educators are now awaiting information from a second review of curriculum by the Arkansas Department of Education. Materials were due for submission on Sep. 8.

When asked what schools can expect from the review, Kimberly Mundell, director of communications at the Arkansas Department of Education, said the department would review submitted materials before providing feedback. She did not address questions from Facing South about the timing of the decision.

Still, Owoh, the superintendent of Jacksonville Pulaski North Schools, remains optimistic of what’s to come from the second curriculum review.

“I hope that what comes from it is that there’s a professional conversation or educational conversation — dialogue between us and the state — about their concerns about certain aspects of the course and how they’re delivered versus banning the entire course,” he said.

Other educators, like Reisma, president of the Arkansas Educators Association, are concerned that this decision is part of a much larger trend.

“There's definitely a movement going through the states, and I don't want it to happen here in Arkansas,” said Reisma.

New State Law Requires Museums to Identify Nazi-Looted Art

MoMA visitors look at a painting by Pablo Picasso, which is included in the MoMA’s Provenance Research Project. Photo by Natalie Demaree for The Midtown Gazette.

Originally published Nov. 21, 2022 for The Midtown Gazette.

Artwork elicits various emotions in different people. But for Judith Evan Goldstein, art is a way to cope with traumatic personal history.

Goldstein is one of the estimated 35,000 Holocaust survivors who call New York home. She said her emotions are stirred when she sees certain paintings in museums that remind her of the war. Because Goldstein is both an artist and a musician, she said these paintings often translate into a soundtrack in her mind. “I hear music and I feel sad,” she said.

In August, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a series of new laws intended to support Holocaust survivors in educational, cultural and financial institutions. Within the legislative package is a law requiring museums to identify displayed artwork stolen during Europe’s Nazi era with a placard or other signage. Though the law was implemented immediately at signing, the parameters of enforcement are not specified and many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown have not yet implemented changes.

“I can’t imagine that a museum is going to put up, as the law said, a little sign that says, ‘this was stolen.’ I mean, that’ll be the day,” said Bette Sparago, a volunteer at the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center and a frequent art museum-goer. 

According to a memorandum accompanying the legislation, “the Nazis looted around 600,000 paintings from Jews during World War II, with the goals of enriching the Third Reich and eradicating Jewish culture.” 

According to Goldstein, “a lot of art was stolen and taken because the people themselves were murdered. Six million were murdered. A million and a half were children,” she said. 

The Nazi-era Provenance Internet Portal, produced and managed by the American Alliance of Museums, is a registry of Nazi-era artwork in museum collections. It lists 16 museums in New York with 2,370 Nazi-era pieces, including the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Advocates for the legislation said many of these museums did not recognize the artwork’s dark history until this decade.

“It’s not just the most tremendous genocide to have taken place, it’s also the greatest theft in history, in terms of cultural property,” said Wesley Fisher, director of research at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and World Jewish Restitution Organization. “This is a good idea to make this known, but the legislation isn’t dealing with the details.”

According to Fisher, the law does not address artwork that isn’t on view, that is on loan in different states or that was looted by Nazis outside of continental Europe. 

“I think this is a statement law,” he said. “It’s a law that says New York state is in favor of people understanding that the Holocaust did this.”

Long before the law, in April 2000, researchers at the MoMA launched the Provenance Research Project on the museum’s website. The spreadsheet currently identifies over one thousand works created before 1946 and acquired after 1932 that were or could have been in Europe during the Nazi era. According to the website, the project is intended to identify any potentially unlawfully obtained works in its collection.

A recent survey by the Claims Conference, a nonprofit serving Holocaust survivors, found New York to be one of 10 states with the lowest Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Gen-Z. 58% of respondents couldn’t name a concentration camp or ghetto, the survey indicates.

“In the 70s, New York state didn’t have anything. A whole group of us really pushed for New York State education, and there is a curriculum,” Sparago said about Holocaust education.

She said that the rise of antisemitism is in part because certain school districts in New York have discontinued teaching about the Holocaust.

For Goldstein, the memories will never fade. “To me, the word ‘war’ scares the hell out of me because I know what it’s like,” she said. 

While museums are still figuring out how to respond to this new law, art auction house Christie’s established its own restitution department in 1966. The department was first involved in the Mauerbach sale, a major auction in Vienna which benefitted the victims of the Holocaust. That team has been central to the resolution of at least 250 claims over the last two decades, according to Richard Aronowitz, global head of restitution at Christie’s. 

“If we have a painting that’s been restituted for sale, we are pretty much going to shout it from the rooftops anyway because it actually makes a painting more desirable because that’s an interesting aspect to the provenance,” said Deborah Coy, a senior specialist at Christie’s. 

While Coy said none of the museum curators she knows have mentioned this new law to her, she does see benefit in providing as descriptive of a provenance as possible.  “A lot of people find it very interesting. A lot of people are more emotional about it than others,” she said. 

The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum did not respond to the Midtown Gazette’s requests for comment.

New Drop-In Center Opens in Chelsea Despite Community Pushback

Chalk writing on West 14th Street decries treatment of homeless people. Photo by Natalie Demaree for The Midtown Gazette.

Originally published Oct. 21, 2022 for The Midtown Gazette.

Several people lined up in front of a nondescript building in Chelsea. At first glance, it looked like they were standing outside an office space. But a closer view showed homeless individuals waiting for shelter at a drop-in center that recently opened in the neighborhood.  

Paul’s Place, located on West 14th Street near the Salvation Army headquarters, is run by the Center for Urban Community Services, a social services organization based in New York. There isn’t any signage out front and for a reason: local residents and small business owners don’t want more homeless shelters in Chelsea and have tried to stop them from opening.

Paul’s Place is located in Chelsea but falls within Community District 2, which includes several Lower Manhattan neighborhoods like the West Village, SoHo, Noho, Greenwich Village and Chinatown. Although Paul’s Place is one of four drop-in centers in Chelsea, it’s the first in District 2, upsetting residents who live within that jurisdiction.

“People were concerned,” said Douglas James, who was the chief operating officer at the Center for Urban Community Services when Paul’s Place was under development. “They don’t understand what we’re doing. They’ve never had a shelter next to them or in their neighborhood before, so this was like a new thing to be presented.”

There are different kinds of shelters for the unhoused population, according to the Department of Social Services. Homeless shelters typically have a structured set of rules and provide semi-permanent housing for those who meet a certain criteria. Drop-in centers, on the other hand, offer temporary beds, hot meals, showers and social services for New Yorkers who aren’t in the city’s system for more permanent housing and benefits. 

“Paul’s Place provides a place for people to get clean, to shower, feel safe,” said James. “A little bit of dignity, a little bit of rest, respite from the outdoors, and on top of that you get them to come in for those things, and you also have social workers who engage them.” 

At a Community Board 2 meeting in April, a number of Lower Manhattan residents knocked down a proposal for a drop-in center, voicing displeasure about safety and quality of life issues. 

“The security concerns that I’ve heard from community members are that homeless people are sleeping on our benches on our private property and following us into the buildings at night,” said Tira Bluestone, who’s lived in Chelsea for a decade and is now running for the board of directors at Penn South, a cooperative housing community on West 24th Street.

Cheri Rothman, a mother of three who’s lived in Chelsea for 18 years, said the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the number of unhoused individuals in her neighborhood. 

“It just has gotten much scarier since,” said Rothman. “It’s much more desolate, and not as many things are open, and there’s just a lot more homeless men it seems like.”

James said it took a few years of sharing the Center for Urban Community Service’s proposal for a drop-in center with city officials, block associations and community boards before Paul Place could open.

“We were looking for a while, and we found a few sites that we thought would be great and the landlords themselves rejected our offers, not wanting to be associated with homeless services,” he said, adding that a few community members asked the Center for Urban Community Services to choose a different neighborhood for the site because theirs was “too nice.”

“Some of those questions were a bit hostile. What was underlying those questions was fear and uncertainty,” said James.

Finally, the Center for Urban Community Services was able to find a landlord willing to rent a distressed building to them on West 14th Street, said James. 

But Rothman is weary about the increase of homeless people roaming the area. “Nobody wants them in their neighborhoods, so if I say, ‘Hey, I’d like a lot of the homes to be in another neighborhood,’ that’s just putting them in somebody else’s neighborhood,” she said.

Last year, 107,510 homeless adults and children slept in the New York City Department of Homeless Services shelter system, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy organization.

While some New Yorkers worry about crime in areas that have shelters or drop-in centers, the data shows only a slight increase in arrests. From April to June, a total of 424 arrests were made at homeless shelters across New York City, a 1.3% increase from 2021, according to New York City Police Department data.

There are some Chelsea locals who are more accepting of homeless individuals in the neighborhood.

John Henniger, co-owner of Dan and John’s Wings, a restaurant across the street from Paul’s Place, said it was common for people to come in looking for a restroom or a place to sit. Although he hadn’t heard about the opening of Paul’s Place, Henniger said he thinks anything to help people experiencing homelessness in their neighborhood is a positive thing.

“They’re part of the community and we’re happy to, you know, talk about football with them and just hang out with them for a minute,” he said.

Broadway is Bustling; Sensory-Friendly Shows, Not So Much

The Lion King billboard on Broadway. Photo by Natalie Demaree for The Midtown Gazette.

Originally published Oct. 3, 2022 for The Midtown Gazette.

Barbara Gold Strate hoped to share her love of theater with her young daughter, but when the 2-year-old was diagnosed with autism, Strate stopped going to the theater altogether. That changed when she found out about sensory-friendly Broadway performances and realized she didn’t have to give up her passion at all.

“I kind of stopped because, you know, dealing with a child with autism is a full-time job,” said Strate. “It was by me bringing her to the sensory-friendly shows that kind of got me going back to the theater with my friends again.”

The Theatre Development Fund, an arts non-profit, has been working with Broadway theaters to provide sensory-friendly performances since 2011. But the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for the organization, threatening the number of performances it produces. Before the pandemic shut down Broadway theaters in March 2020, TDF put on six sensory-friendly performances a year. This season, because of low demand, the organization has announced a lineup of four performances with a fifth one still to be confirmed, raising concerns that the program could take a pause if things don’t turn around.

“Our ticket sales are not back where they were pre-Covid,” said Lisa Carling, director of accessibility programs at the Theatre Development Fund. “The interest is there, the appetite is there, they want to go to autism friendly performances, but they’re not quite ready yet.”

A sensory-friendly performance is defined by the Theatre Development Fund as a musical or play designed to create a welcoming, supportive atmosphere for people with autism or other sensory sensitivities. Certain lighting may be adjusted, the sound is lower, and audience members are allowed to speak or make sound whenever they want throughout a show.

“It means so much to families to be able to come and be in a welcoming, judgment free environment where they don’t have to apologize. Everyone can just be themselves,” said Carling.

Strate and her daughter, Sarah, now 26, are regulars at sensory-friendly Broadway performances, commuting from New Jersey, said Strate.

“We go to all of them. We have tickets to see the Lion King (for like the 10th time lol),” said Strate in a Facebook message.

Strate had taken her daughter Sarah to the theater before the Theater Development Fund’s sensory-friendly performances debuted in 2011.

“My daughter actually attended two shows that were just regular shows. She saw “Beauty and the Beast” and “Tarzan” and it was very, very stressful,” said Strate. “When TDF started doing the shows, it was like a godsend because now she could go to the theater and be who she is, and it was perfect.”

While she’s grateful that these performances are options for her daughter, Strate said she wishes there were a wider variety of shows available.

“How many times can you see The Lion King?” said Strate. “We go to see it every single time they offer it. Now for somebody with autism, that’s great because they love repetition. But for somebody who isn’t autistic—you want to kind of kill yourself.”

Carling said TDF aims to offer more performance options, but the pandemic has set back those hopes because of low attendance at the shows. “Is it crime in Times Square? Is it expenses? I mean, everything’s going up,” she said. “Is it fear of COVID? We don’t know.”

If ticket sales increase this season, the Theatre Development Fund plans to add back a sixth show to next year’s lineup. But if the season goes poorly or theaters are shut down again, the program will be paused, said Carling.

Ray Mercer, is an ensemble member in “The Lion King.”

“Even backstage, sometimes you hear the cast and the crew mention that this is one of their favorite shows that they do every year,” said Mercer, who recalled a special moment meeting a mother in the audience.

“I can remember her face, and she said that she is so happy that we had this performance, because this was her daughter’s favorite show. And she would probably never ever been able to bring her to a Broadway show under normal conditions,” said Mercer.

This season of sensory-friendly performances kicks off Sunday, October 2 with “The Lion King.”

e-Unicycles: Popular hobbies, but Illegal in New York City

View transcript here.

Bentonville’s Newest Live Music Venue

Photo by Stephen Ironside of Ironside Photography.

Originally published in Crystal Bridges and the Momentary’s Annual Member Magazine in 2021.

It’s been said that music bonds people together, and after more than a year of attending virtual concerts and productions apart from one another, we were collectively reminded of how remarkable it is to experience live performance communally.

Whether it be the thrill of jumping up and down or head-bobbing to a great tune or having a moment of introspection in a crowd, it’s these shared experiences that build a sense of community.

As an institution that focuses on and responds to the art of today, the Momentary set a goal to bring live music back safely. Because if we’re honest, the art we’re craving today is the art of gathering.

“We are serious about making the Momentary a ‘living room for the community,’ and music is the key that unlocks that door,” said Olivia Walton, executive board chair of the Momentary and board chair of Crystal Bridges. “Done right, music can be more accessible, bring together all sides of the political spectrum, and simply be less intimidating than a traditional ‘museum space.’”

As a result of this initiative, the Momentary programmed two major music series this summer—Live on the Green Concert Series and Courtyard Sessions—and (finally) hosted the inaugural FreshGrass | Bentonville festival this fall, celebrating today’s bluegrass and roots music.

The Sounds of Summer

As the summer air floated into Bentonville, the lights came up over the Canopy on the Momentary Green and we ushered in a new chapter, welcoming over 97 musicians in total.

Each Friday evening, crowds rolled in for Live on the Green, our family-friendly outdoor concert series, setting up picnic blankets and lawn chairs and enjoying beverages from the nearby RØDE Bar and kebabs from the Momentary Food Truck. Watching the day fade into night, we jammed to the sounds of artists across genres, such as The Accidentals, Willi Carlisle, and Rochelle Bradshaw & Hypnotion, to name a few.

Music-lovers didn’t have to wait long for another live-music high. In our Courtyard Sessions series, in partnership with CACHE, crowds were welcomed back every Sunday afternoon. Community members sand and danced along to the beat of the best upcoming artists in Northwest Arkansas such as DJ Raquel, Ley Lines, Mildenhall, and others.

Returning to Our Roots

In early October, FreshGrass | Bentonville made its debut at the Momentary and was the highlight of a live music-filled year. The two-day family-friendly festival brought in today’s best bluegrass and roots artists such as Billy Strings, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Steep Canyon Rangers, Leyla McCalla, Flor de Toloache, and many more. Music fans from near and far braved the rain-spotted weekend and enjoyed incredible performances from different groups across the Momentary campus. Saturday afternoon, the sun came out making the weather just right, and we danced the night away amid a full Momentary Green. IT felt good to gather again, and it made us hopeful knowing that this is only the beginning of many phenomenal experiences at the Momentary.

FreshGrass has been held at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts every year since 2011 and attended by thousands of people. FreshGrass | Bentonville is the newest addition to the organization and is intended to become a reoccurring music festival that not only presents great bluegrass music on local, regional, and national levels, but also creates spaces to have meaningful, shared experiences.

Argeo Ascani Joins the Momentary

In August, the Momentary welcomed Argeo Ascani as its new programmer of music and festivals. Ascani joined the Momentary from Troy, New York, where they worked as a curator at EMPAC—the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Ascani has worked with a range of artists, including electronic music pioneers Kode9 and Oneohtrix Point Never, and mastermind musicians Anne Akiko Meyers and Tyshawn Sorey.

Ascani envisions the Momentary growing into a place where people gather to have thought-provoking, perspective-enhancing encounters with live performance, they said.

“That could take many forms, whether it is hearing a band you’ve been following online for the first time live, being awed by a virtuoso pianist, experiencing a rich and complex composition, or feeling the music rush over you with the stars overhead,” Ascani said.

Whatever the next year brings, we’ll be sure not to miss a beat with live music on the schedule.

Social media’s influence in the Black Lives Matter Movement and George Floyd Protests

Photo illustration by Kerri Holt for Hill Magazine.

Originally published December 3, 2020 for Hill Magazine.

The world was heavy—mournful—on June 2, 2020 as we watched our screens turn black. 

On that day, the loud and seemingly infinite stream of information and self promotion regularly seen on social media came to a stop, leaving but one voice to be heard. This voice was not a new voice, rather, it was one as old as America. A voice that had been belittled and silenced for decades erupted all over social media bringing about a rude, but necessary, awakening for many Americans. 

Just eight days before, on May 25, George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by white police officers in Minneapolis. This event was caught on video and disseminated quickly throughout the quarantined country.

According to a Times analysis of a timestamped video taken at the scene, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd on the ground keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes and fifteen seconds.

Eight minutes and fifteen seconds. 

Floyd lost consciousness, and Chauvin did not remove his knee, according to the analysis.

Paramedics arrived at the scene and for a full minute and twenty seconds after, Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.

As the video circulated, viewers were left devastated and confused by the callous actions of the police officer. It was this video which galvanized protests in cities across the country, bringing many individuals out of their homes after living remotely for three months because of stay-at-home orders enacted due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Several people gathered on June 2, 2020 for the Black Lives Matter protest on the Fayetteville square. Photo by Heidi Kirk for Hill Magazine.

The George Floyd protests soon gathered steam as it was broadcast all over the media. Activism was not only flourishing on the streets, but on the streams of social media, now leaving a record of images and videos recounting the tumultuous cry of protesters. These images revealed that people weren’t just demanding justice for George Floyd, but for the many fatal shootings of unarmed Black individuals by police officers.

Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime, a 2019 study done by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America found. According to Statista, a German statistics company, 157 Black people have been fatally shot by police this year alone as of Oct. 30, 2020.

Blackout Tuesday, on June 2, 2020, came about as a response to these events. It was a collective gesture of solidarity with the protests against the police killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many more Black citizens. This initiative was started by two Black women, Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, by using the hashtag “#TheShowMustBePaused” according to The Show Must Be Paused website. Though it originated in the music industry, this hashtag eventually spread to all forms of social media. 

“We are tired and can’t change things alone. In the meantime, to our Black friends and family: please take the time for you and your mental health,” Thomas and Agyemang said on their website. “To our allies, the time is now to have difficult conversations with family, friends and colleagues.”

 The voice of the Black community was the only voice left to be heard on that day, and it marked a consequential point in a movement toward a widespread re-education in America and sparked a national discourse about race, police brutality and policy. 

———

I remember feeling confused as I scrolled through my Instagram feed early that summer morning, before knowing anything about the initiative. As I saw a few acquaintances posting black squares, I thought to myself:

What’s up with these black squares? Are people getting hacked?

I exited out of the app, thinking when I looked at it again later that day there would be something more riveting for me to see. After brunch with my family, I opened Instagram again shocked to find that my entire feed was made up of black squares. 

What the heck is going on? I thought, perplexed that my regularly scheduled Instafeed had been disrupted. 

I paid particular attention to who had posted these black squares—this time, my friends had posted, businesses I follow had posted, public figures had posted. I couldn’t help but to read through a few captions. Though the black squares said nothing, the multitude of them was provocative enough to capture my attention.

The captions that accompanied the black squares posted that day were unforgettable, to me. The words were obviously written out with a weighty, sorrowful sentiment. Some enraged at the events that had happened over the last few days. Some captions stated bible verses like Isaiah 1:16-17 which says, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression.” Some simply left blank, as if no words could possibly mend the current situation we were in. 

Black-Owned Northwest Arkansas, an Instagram account meant to serve as a guide to Black-owned businesses in Northwest Arkansas, wrote in their caption, “‘#blackouttuesday’ the movement is more than a hashtag check your heart and intentions before engaging. Do you really want change or is it for show? Black people have to be about that life everyday. Will you still be around when the cameras stop rolling?”

I realized what was happening. The posts were an acknowledgement of the broken racial climate in America.

———

On Jan. 4, 2020, a few months before Blackout Tuesday, I sat at the front of a nearly empty classroom dumbfounded about the new information being taught in my Black Movements and Messiahs intersession course at the University of Arkansas.

I had signed up to try to get ahead in course credits, and the class counted as a history credit, which I needed. It looked interesting enough, and I had high hopes that it would be an easy class, especially since it was offered during winter break. 

Over the next week and a half, Caree Banton, who has a doctorate in history, led our class of about 12 people in a deep expedition back in time and through the history of Black people, from their perspective. The class was packed with new content, and on top of being in class for about four hours a day with only a short break in between for a week and a half straight, we were also assigned two book reports and a group project to work on outside of class—not an easy A.

I think I learned more in that class than any other class I had ever taken. Incredibly humbled by the experience, I went and added African and African American Studies as a minor as soon as I finished the class. 

Part of me was infuriated that in all my years of being in school, no one had ever taught me the history of Black people in America, from their perspective. In 14 years of being a student and being asked to “think critically” I had never even questioned if there was another side of history. 

“This is systematic, you know. From the textbooks that you’re reading in middle school and high school all the way up to how the curriculum is arranged in college that some people never get to take those classes,” Banton said. 

I can’t even begin to imagine how Black people must feel having their historical records left out of academic narratives. What kind of an education system is this? Favoring and exclusively teaching one perspective and ignoring the many other perspectives that are foundational to not only society, but to the human experience! 

We have got to re-evaluate. 

———

I took a screenshot of a black square and went to post. I couldn’t think of a caption. Right before I started typing #blackouttuesday, I deleted my draft of the post. The situation was delicate, and I wanted more time to reflect before posting.

I set down my phone and picked up my copy of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography that I had been reading. On the TV, I pulled up Spotify to enjoy some background music. 

Oh my gosh. Spotify is participating in Blackout Tuesday too. 

The covers for playlists in the “browse” section were blacked out. Some of the artists I was following also had changed their profile photos to a black picture. I couldn’t believe it.

This is awesome. This is a cross-media movement; this is a global movement. 

I turned on my favorite artist, Chance The Rapper, and exchanged my book for my phone. Out of curiosity, I opened up Pinterest, my second most used social media app besides Instagram. It was there too. Pinterest had changed its profile picture to match the Blackout Tuesday initiative. 

As incredible as I thought it all was, there was a skeptical thought that lingered in my mind:

If the goal is to elevate Black voices, how is choosing to post a black square actually helping? Wouldn’t it be better if I just didn’t post on social media at all?

I questioned if my motivation to post at first had been performative. If I was going to show that I stood in solidarity with the Black community, shouldn’t I be doing something else besides just posting something on social media? But what could I do?

I refrained from posting that day. Not because I don’t care about Black people, and I wasn’t mad that other people were posting their black squares either.  I just didn’t understand and couldn’t justify how my post would help elevate the voices of Black people around me. I didn’t want to post out of pressure to make a statement, and I certainly didn’t want to post on Blackout Tuesday and forget the sentiment behind that post the next Tuesday. I was silent.

———

A July 2020 survey reports that 23 percent of social media users in the U.S. and 17 percent of adults overall say that social media has led to a change in their views about a political or social issue, many citing the Black Lives Matter Movement, according to Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. On Twitter alone, the “#BlackLivesMatter” hashtag was used roughly 3.7 million times per day from May 26 to June 7, according to Pew. 

Social media is a tool that has been used to propel movements recognizing People of Color. However, when used incorrectly or without proper knowledge, social media has also been used to cause more damage to those people groups. 

At about lunch time on Blackout Tuesday, people began removing their posts. There was a graphic circulating calling for people to delete their black square posts. Black-Owned Northwest Arkansas posted a follow up–“If you’ve posted a black square with #blacklivesmatter please consider deleting. You’re silencing valuable resources and information within the movement. We need our voices to be amplified, not silenced. #blackouttuesday #blacklivesmatter”

While the initiative began with good intentions, because of a lack of information, it ended up doing more harm than good. By adding the hashtag #blacklivesmatter to the posts from the Blackout Tuesday initiative, it was burying crucial information, especially relating to protests that were happening at the time that were being shared within the Black Lives Matter Movement under that hashtag. 

  Jasmine Hudson and J’Aaron Merchant, who run the Black-Owned Northwest Arkansas account, are concerned that intentions in posting a black square may not have all been pure. 

“You have to engage in what’s popular, right. So, take an influencer and they have a diverse fan base, and even if they really don’t believe in everything that the Blackout stance stood for, they have to post it or else they’re gonna get called out, and the last thing you need in today’s cancel culture is to be cancelled,” Hudson said. 

Hudson said that on one end, the initiative served in bringing an overall awareness to the genuine belief that Black lives really do matter, but overall the movement was more detrimental in her opinion. A major concern Hudson, Merchant and others shared that day is what would happen after. If there would be any tangible change as a result from the initiative. 

“With big corporate businesses, they posted their black square and their white text and kept it moving,” Merchant said. 

The Blackout Tuesday social media initiative, in a sense, reflected the way our culture mourns the losses of innocent Black lives non-virtually. People take time to sympathize with the Black community and then go back on living their normal lives.

“It happens after every single shooting. There’s always a Town Hall, a discussion, someone may even put together like a plan, but it doesn’t, nothing actually really happens to really impact change,” Hudson said. 

This shouldn’t be the case. If America ever wants to move forward as a non-racist country, policy change must happen proportionately to the dialogue about racism and inequality. We need something tangible. 

———

As I watched my screen go black, I was bewildered at how rapidly the initiative spread across all platforms of social media. As I watched people take down their posts or change their captions, I was alarmed at how much of an effect cancel culture has on what people do on social media. I was alarmed at how quickly misinformation could travel. 

I felt helpless as I remembered what I had learned in my January intersession class.

The threads of prejudice, racism, favoritism and inequality were woven into the foundations of our country. And though it is a hard recognition, it is those threads that hold together the most valuable systems that make up what we call a democracy. 

And how could I, a single individual, help without causing more hurt? Can all American citizens ever truly experience freedom and security within the land of liberty? 

The lyrics of “America the Beautiful” rang in my head.

America! America! 

God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

I prayed that Jesus would come back soon. That he would bring justice and restoration so that people would stop considering good and evil on their own terms—so that I would stop considering good and evil on my own terms. 

———

The day our screens went black marked a historic day for so many reasons. It showcased a collective voice broadly while allowing different routes of looking into individual voices—all which yearned and pleaded equality for every citizen, no matter their background.

For me, Blackout Tuesday was an internal scope, an opportunity to contemplate my own implicit biases and a promise to keep unlearning history as it was taught, and to re-learn history, incorporating everyone’s perspectives. 

The day helped me to diversify my social media feed, so that I can listen to people outside of my own circle. It taught me about being intentional with where I invest my time and money. 

I think a lot of people learned some of the same lessons I did because of Blackout Tuesday. Though at the time the situation was confusing, and misinformation was traveling like crazy, I believe this day was purposeful in catching the attention of many Americans. 

I am thankful for the patience and grace given to me by my Black friends, professors and acquaintances. Though I know you’re tired, and though I know things like this shouldn’t keep happening—thank you for continuing to fight, and for continuing to lead us in learning to love earnestly and to love all.

May we remember this historic day, and assimilate the honest sentiments behind it into how we think and the choices we make daily. And may this lead us past a conversation, to tangible policy change that upholds the inherent value of all people. 

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

Sports, Advertising, Art History, Pop Culture, Civil Rights—The Things That Tie Us Together

The title wall for Hank Willis Thomas’ newly opened exhibition All Things Being Equal… Feb. 22 at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. Photo by Natalie Demaree.

BENTONVILLE, Ark.—The woman looked contemplative as she walked out of the exhibition. Being 80 years old, Nina Selz remembered the sentiments of events recorded in the artwork. She had lived through it. She had seen it with her own eyes. 

Artist Hank Willis Thomas’ All Things Being Equal… is an exhibiton at Crystal Bridges meant to examine popular culture and raise awareness in the ongoing struggle for social justice and civil rights through 91 different pieces, according to the museum’s website. 

“History is usually told from one perspective, and it’s really our responsibility as scholars, as we go into higher education, to start to demystify and nuance how we understand history and our role in it,” said Allison Glenn, associate curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges. “I think this is one opportunity of many to kind of demystify our understanding of history.” 

 In a town with a Black population of just under 3 percent, according to the most recent World Population Review, Bentonville might seem like an unlikely host of the exhibition. However, the exhibition relates to everyone as it allows people of all backgrounds to claim this historical narrative as their own, and take a step toward a more diverse community

Graphic by Natalie Demaree.

The audience is asked to become participants in acknowledging, reconsidering, and deconstructing old ways of thinking that hinder opportunity, liberty, and inclusion for all people, according to a Crystal Bridges press release.

The entire exhibition is very intentional starting from the placement of each piece to the lighting in the room, Glenn said. 

The exhibition “will underscore the impact that the art of our time can have in fostering public discourse about important issues,” said Rod Bigelow, executive director and chief diversity and inclusion officer at Crystal Bridges, in a press release. 

Musician Epiphany Morrow, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, said the mix of creativity and statement within the pieces make the exhibition impactful.

“The branded thing could have been a three sentence thing. He could have been like ‘hey, Black bodies are utilized as a very connection to slavery,’ or you could have a dude in a three-point stance versus somebody who’s picking cotton in a three-point stance, and that’s a different level,” Morrow said. 

Whereas sentences he could forget, Thomas’ images are buried into Morrow’s mind, he said. 

Morrow said this exhibition is a conscious stride to a more diverse community, though there is still much to do.

“Diversity is not just having non-white bodies, it’s also understanding and respecting cultures where it almost becomes natural to understand that is part of a natural tapestry of America rather than just like ‘the other,’” he said. 

Justyce Yuille, UA student, said she thinks the problem with diversity is that it’s become an aesthetic rather than systemic.

“It’s more like, ‘make sure you have this person in the picture so that we can show our diversity,’” Yuille said. 

It is important for people to recognize that Black history is American history, and it plays an important role in how many things are shaped, she said. 

However, there are some who disagree.

At the end of the exhibition, participants are given the chance to answer the question, “what does freedom mean to you,” on a card and hang it up. 

One of the anonymous cards in the exhibition read, “Freedom of whiteness and white supremacy.” 

Nonetheless, Yuille said exhibitions such as this one are valuable because some of the sentiments of the past are still valid today.

“The things that they were fighting for then, we’re still fighting now,” Yuille said. “As a Black woman, I’m still fighting against racial discrimination.” 

The division between Yuille’s generation and the one before is that the things that her generation has now, they actually fought for in the civil rights era, she said. 

“And we’re still fighting it, but just on a different scale than my grandma had to,” she said. 

Nina Selz said Thomas’ art exhibition does an excellent job at recording the history that she has witnessed. 

The nation has always had a problem with acceptance of different cultures and people, she said.

“Step back 100 years in terms of women and Blacks, hispanics. Look at what happens if someone wears a scarf, they get rocks thrown at them. Now, if you wear a mask, you get rocks thrown at you. It’s unfortunate today, it’s like it was when I was in school,” Selz said. 

In addition to the art exhibition, Crystal Bridges is partnering with other organizations in the community to host a series of talks meant to educate community members about the nation’s past, allow a space for people to share what they feel, and a conversation to think of a solution to the problems they face today.

“We will have to find a solution one of these days, won’t we,” Selz said.