8 HONORING THE LEGACY Advocacy through Art
David Blanco Gonzalez and the Youth Participatory Action Research Team
Legacy exists at the sacred intersection of life and death. Young people in Sacramento yearn for a way to memorialize their peers who passed away and so advocate for and honor Black life. In partnership, a local artist David Gonzalez and young people from the Mutual Assistance Network of the Arden Arcade Community Incubator Lead (CIL) for the Black Child Legacy Campaign developed a participatory action research project to elevate and honor the life of a child or young person killed in Sacramento County. The team became the Youth Voice Advocacy project and gives all the credit to the youth and the families involved who bravely shared their stories and who lead their neighborhoods to continued greatness every day.
Participatory Action Research Project
The Youth Voice Advocacy project gathered young people from all seven BCLC neighborhoods to talk about third-party homicide and the violence they witnessed in their communities. The youth are so often removed from conversations about how to combat violence, and yet they are often the closest to the pain when a young person’s life has been taken. Throughout the meetings, they shared personal stories of their family members, friends, and peers falling victim to violence. The families of the victims were invited to meet with their neighborhood’s youth and share their stories of how violence had affected them. Each neighborhood group then chose one victim to lift up through art who would represent their neighborhood.
David Gonzalez was commissioned to sit in on these meetings and create portraits of each of the victims chosen by the youth. He attended the meetings to hear the words and stories of the young people and families and to talk about his process of using art as a tool for healing. He used these conversations and stories as the foundation for his portraits, literally inscribing each blank canvas with the words and phrases shared by each neighborhood. David completed eight portraits, four of which are shown in figures 8.1–8.4. They were unveiled at a private showing for the families of the loved ones lost at the Sol Collective Arts and Cultural Center in Sacramento in 2018.
FIGURE 8.1. Photographer: Terence Duffy (terenceduffy.com)
FIGURE 8.2. Photographer: Terence Duffy (terenceduffy.com)
FIGURE 8.3. Photographer: Terence Duffy (terenceduffy.com)
FIGURE 8.4. Photographer: Terence Duffy (terenceduffy.com)
- REST IN POWER
- Adrienne Ludd, North Highlands
- Azalya Anderson, Valley Hi
- De’Sean Rowe-Manns, Arden Arcade
- Deston “Nutter” Garrett, Oak Park
- Jacob Green, North Highlands
- Jaulon “JJ” Clavo, Del Paso Heights
- Stephon A. Clark, Meadowview
- Timothy Jeter, Fruitridge-Stockton