Tag: Black Lives Matter

To Be a Black Women Professor Amidst the 2020 Uprisings

Jallicia Jolly, IRT ’13

My Thursday mornings know no sunrise without the feeling of crisp autumn air. I wake up to neatly manicured lawns, orange-green leaves, and jogging students as I welcome another Amherst fall day. The scene bears a striking contrast to the weight of black pain on my mind, body, and soul.

I’m undone.

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Road Trip Revelations

Reflections on a visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum

by Brittany Zorn, IRT ’13, Arts & Sciences Specialist, IRT and
Morgan Kinney, Associate Director, Center for Civic Leadership,
Rice University

 “Can you help me find my child?” A desperate voice came from behind bars in a dark hallway. I snapped my head in the direction of the voice and locked eyes with the hologram of a Black mother, speaking directly to me, triggered by my stepping into the hallway. She looked ghostly, depicted in shades of brown and gray, but the sense of urgency in her human voice kept me keyed in for the duration of her plea. “They took my children,” she continued to describe them and ask if I had seen any kids. Turning my wide eyes to my friend, Brittany, further down the hallway, I saw that she was trapped in a similarly gut-wrenching scene and that the whole hall was an immersive depiction of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which once took place, we were informed, on the very ground we were standing on. I then realized the Legacy Museum was not going to be a typical educational experience.
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