Hysterical Baptism: The Holler
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Hysterical Baptism: Just Us
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You check your phone, again. Another hour has passed. You rise with the light of each passing car. Watch the door. Listen for a key in the lock and pray your child will enter unharmed. Driven by an ever-present threat of violence, parents and caregivers across the nation enact this nightly vigil. 

In the call and response tradition, L’Merchie Frazier’s “Hysterical Baptism” presents a conversation between two artworks that speaks to this fundamental fear and offers a roadmap for confronting violence and the lasting impacts of slavery on African American communities.

“The Holler” is a call from Africa, a grieving mother’s wail heard across oceans of land and time, from the ancestors to our present-day communities. “Just Us” answers this call with community-wide efforts that center Black children and families. Together, these works create a new narrative that aims to restore our humanity through love, protest, self-knowledge, conservation, and investment in our communities. Through such values and strategies, there is hope that we can cancel violence.

“We rely on the force of our creative communities to provide an avenue to possible solutions. As an activist implementing art as a tool for discourse about justice, I have hope that there may be, embedded in the power of art, community resilience and a resolution to the haunting phenomenon of violence.”

—L’Merchie Frazier

“Love is the Question and the Answer.”

—Melvin King, civil rights activist and community leader