Activism, art and expressions of Black strength Through film, photo, music and paint, Charlottesville artists are using art as a form of activism and expression Words by Denise Brookman-Amissah
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hroughout the summer, Charlottesville community members and students took to the streets alongside 26 million Americans to protest police brutality and systemic racism in America. Since then, the nation witnessed record-breaking voter turnout in the 2020 elections, the restriction of chokeholds in 62 percent of the country’s biggest police departments and resistance among government leaders to implement major reforms. In addition, various other art forms were created to honor the victims of police brutality and advocate for change. The Black Lives Matter movement put a spotlight on the lack of diversity and representation in the media and art world. Local artists are combating this absence by documenting their experience as Black artists through their creations.
Documenting summer 2020
Eze Amos, a Charlottesville photojournalist, used his Instagram to showcase his walks during Black Lives Matter protests in summer 2020, documenting protestors in action in Charlottesville and Richmond. “This revolution will be photographed,” Amos wrote in the caption of an Instagram post. Amos was one of the many Black photojournalists who used their skills to document the Black Lives Matter protests. Photojournalists stood on the front lines alongside protestors and captured the spectrum of emotions sparked by protests, using their social media platforms to share moments that were not broadcast on national news. “Folks go out in the street to protest, they write signs, they have sit-ins, they have public disobedience — whatever form of protest they adopt, our job as artists is to help them amplify whatever message they are trying to push,” Amos said.
The infamous Stonewall Jackson statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond — a grassy mall which is home to numerous Confederate statues — was removed by cranes on July 1. As the statue was removed from its pedestal, hundreds of protesters cheered in the pouring rain — Amos was there to document that historic moment. When he drove back to his home in Charlottesville, he recounted his experience witnessing history to The Cavalier Daily. “It’s a movement that is finally getting people to pay attention and listen to what folks have been saying for all these years about police brutality, ... the injustice of how they treat black people, implicit bias, all those things that everybody has been talking about Trump for as long as we can remember,” Amos said. Amos stated he believed in order to create lasting change, artists must keep pushing the stories and communicating the messages of protesters that mainstream media doesn’t cover.
The Stonewall Jackson statue was removed July 1. Photo courtesy Eze Amos.
www.cavalierdaily.com/section/magazine
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