This story will air in the June 19, 2023 episode of Crosscurrents.
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Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence is an exhibit currently on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. In paintings and sculptures, Wiley depicts lifeless bodies of Black people, often posed with peaceful expressions in verdant settings. It’s an artistic statement — simultaneously stunning and meditative — commenting on a history of violence in the United States.
A six-part speaker series organized by the Live Free USA Network (and sponsored by KALW) accompanies the exhibit. On Mother’s Day weekend, Pastor Michael McBride curated conversations with half a dozen women whose children were killed by, after encounters with, or without the protection of law enforcement officials.
As McBride told about 100 people assembled in the de Young Museum’s Koret Auditorium for the event on Saturday, May 13, “We believe that if we are experiencing this exhibit, the Archeology of Silence, the only way you defeat silence is to use your voice.”
The Women
You’ll know the names of many of the people whose mothers came together to speak.
- Gwen Carr: Mother of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man killed by police in Staten Island, New York, on July 17, 2014
- Wanda Cooper: Mother of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man chased down and killed in Brunswick, Georgia, on February 23, 2020
- Taun Hall: Mother of Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man killed by police in Walnut Creek, California, on June 2, 2019
- Mona Hardin: Mother of Ronald Greene, a 49-year-old Black man killed by police in Union Parish, Louisiana, on May 10, 2019
- DeAnna Joseph: Mother of Andrew Joseph III, a 14-year-old Black boy struck and killed by a car on a highway in East Lake-Orient Park, Florida, after being ejected from the Florida State Fair on February 7, 2014
- Wanda Johnson: Mother of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Black man killed by a BART police officer at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California, on January 1, 2009
It was an emotional conversation, filled with stories of the mothers’ love for their children.
Gwen Carr talked about a phone call she had with her son, Eric Garner, on the last day of his life.
“He said, ‘I love you, Ma,’” she remembered. “I said, ‘Love you, too, Eric.’ Because this is the way me and my children always ended our conversations. Well, not knowing that would be our last conversation. Every time I think about that conversation I say, ‘I wish I could have stayed on that phone forever. And kept talking to him.’”
Wanda Cooper-Jones said, “I didn't realize that this pain was so crucial until I went through this pain myself as a mother. To come together with these other families who have gone through this for decades, it really breaks my heart. Because the pain is so unreal.”
The Impact of Media Coverage
The tragedies these women suffered were amplified by the attention they received from the media.
“You know, soon after his death, they wanted to put something very negative,” said Carr. “They said that he was homeless. They said, you know, ‘an uneducated Black.’ I paid good money for my son to go to college, ok. He was not uneducated. He could talk to you on any subject.”
DeAnna Joseph said she knows people often jump to conclusions.
“When you see families like this,” she said, “don't say to yourself, ‘Now, what was that boy or what was that girl doing to deserve that death?’”
Many of the women spent years pursuing justice. That means ensuring their sons’ names are remembered for who they really were. In many cases, it also meant pushing for systemic reform.
Carr said she hopes people who hear these stories will become active in seeking solutions.
“These are not just news stories that you should sit on the edge of your couch,” she said. “You should do something about it. Whatever you do. A lot of people don't protest. No, you don't have to protest. You could write letters, you can do art, you can organize in your community, organize voting rights, tell people where, how they can vote, tell them what to do, how to look at their candidates, and how to choose a candidate. And we always should choose candidates that are bringing something to the table for us. Because if we are not at the table, we are on the menu. And we must remember that.”
From Grief to Purpose
Wanda Johnson said there’s a process for dealing with the unimaginable.
“I always share with other families that I talk to,” she said, “and I say to them, we understand all the steps of grief. We understand the anger, we understand the frustration, we understand the denial. We understand the bargaining. We understand all of those things, and we go through that process as if it's a rollercoaster, sometimes up and sometimes down. But yet, if we tap into our greater source, if we tap into our higher power, as we go through those phases of trauma, as we go through those phases of grief, we're able to go through them knowing, ‘God, I can't help myself, but you can help me get through this pain so that my pain will turn into a greater purpose.’”
Carr said that purpose has given meaning to her life.
“When I pray about it,” she said, “I could hear a whisper of the Lord saying, ‘If you had died, who would've been the one to lift up his name? Who would have been here to advocate and tell them who Eric really was? To tell the stories, tell about his first step to tell about his first day of school? The graduations you went to? Who would've been here to do that? So a lot of times we are kept here for a reason.”
Cooper-Jones said the community around her helped as she told her son’s story.
“I wanted to say thank you for supporting me,” she said. “My family got justice for Ahmad because you guys stood with us. You guys chanted ‘Justice for Ahmad,’ and we got justice for Ahmad. We need to stand with these other families who have not got justice yet until they get justice.”
Carr has helped effect legislative change.
“We do have a new law in New York State: the ‘Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold’ bill,” she said. “I got that law passed. We got the ‘Right to Know Law.’”
The latter law, in effect since 2018, requires NYPD officers to identify themselves to civilians at the beginning of certain exchanges.
Taun Hall helped pass AB988 in California, also known as the Miles Hall Lifeline and Suicide Prevention Act. It provides people who call 9-8-8 with 24-hour intervention, including mobile crisis teams with trained mental health professionals instead of law enforcement.
Carr said the women’s advocacy is on behalf of more than just their own children.
“They call us the mothers of the movement,” she said, “but I always tell everyone that we are the face of the mothers of the movement because there are tens of thousand mothers of the movement, and we are here to represent.”
Pastor Michael McBride, moderating the conversation, emphasized the importance of the justice movement right now.
McBride said, “We are in a moment because of the crime spikes during the aftermath, dare I say the current experience of a global pandemic. So many people are willing to now reverse the gains made around re-imagining public safety and ending mass incarceration and pushing back on police violence. People are now starting to say, we need to go back to a tough on crime era.
“And I want you to know, as a survivor of police violence, myself, physically and sexually assaulted by police officers in 1999. I am a survivor of what a tough on crime model of public safety looks like.
“Today we have mothers who are survivors of what a tough on crime approach looks like. The only way we could go back to a tough on crime approach to public safety would be us ignoring and silencing the voices of these mothers.”
The Mothers’ Thoughts on the Exhibit
An Archaeology of Silence at the de Young Museum served as inspiration for the speaker series that brought these women together.
“Kehinde Wiley was I believe in Senegal during the 2020 year of the pandemic,” McBride said. “And he said that Ahmaud Aubery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, particularly during that year, catalyzed his spirit to create something of what we've experienced in honor of all these lives.”
McBride asked the panelists to share their thoughts on seeing the exhibit.
“To be honest, I didn't know what I was walking into,” said Wanda Cooper-Jones. “I wasn't prepared for it. The first piece of art I saw selfishly; I immediately thought about Ahmad. The beautiful black skin. And he appeared to be a jogger. Someone who had been running ‘cause they had on athletic shoes, but he was lying there not alive.
“And I often pictured Ahmad lying there in the middle of that street. Not alive yet. His skin was beautiful like the paintings, but it was, I think DeAnna said it was like life, but it was death at the same time. I saw something so full of life. But something that was not, did not have life at all.”
Gwen Carr said, “I was in awe of the exhibit. Just seeing the different poses, the different way that these bodies were laid out.
“I particularly paid attention to the detail, the vines that were growing over, the bodies of those victims. And I personally put myself in the space of the young man who was laying out on the slab, and he had all the vines growing up here.
“I symbolized those vines as being me laying over him. I said, ‘Because if that day when he died, and I was there, they would've had to kill both of us.’ So I just say these were my vines. This was my body growing around his body.”
DeAnna Joseph was struck by the artistry and its intention.
“I saw beautiful colors. I saw rich details. But I saw long suffering,” she said. “No matter how beautiful that art is, it’s still a rippling break of your heart to know that this type of art has to exist, so that our people and our community can somehow resonate with what we feel.”
Taun Hall also commented on the juxtapositions.
“The brightness,” she said. “The beauty. So much beauty, the lighting. The darkness in the room. That's like my life. The darkness. So much darkness. But yet there's so much light. Because in Miles' death there's so much more growth and change. And so for me, I saw hope. I saw hope.”
After tragedy, resilience and strength. Through artistry and community, hope. The gathering of mothers around the extraordinary exhibit was a moment that won’t be forgotten. Their voices will not be silenced.
Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence will be on display at the de Young Museum through October 15. The associated speaker series will take place monthly in the Koret Auditorium throughout the run of the exhibit. The next event, A Father’s Heart, is Saturday, June 17, beginning at noon.
