Love Balm For My SpiritChild
Love Balm for my SpiritChild: Testimonies of Healing justice through Mothers' Memory- is a workshop series that celebrates revolutionary motherhood and commemorative justice.
OUR HALLOWED GROUND
In Honor of
Kerry Baxter Junior
On Saturday June 1st and Sunday June 2nd, we held performances of The Love Balm Project-Our Hallowed Ground. I felt the spirit of my grandson Kerry Baxter Junior, come through and kiss my right cheek. The sky was so blue, the breeze so soft and sweet, and everything seemed to have life and meaning. That is the effect the performance and sharing of Kerry’s life and passing had on me and those in attendance. Kerry Baxter Junior was my oldest Grandson, who was shot and killed in front of St. Anthony’s Church in Oakland CA. He was nineteen years old when his life was taken, a young man with his life in front of him.
My memories of growing up in Pennsylvania include my Mother, Father, siblings, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and my Grandparents on both sides. We were a large family and that does not count the extended play cousins, and others who made up our clan. There are a lot of good memories and some not so good; it was the difficulties of life. Yet, nothing in my history prepared me for the death of my grandson. I remember my mother-in-law whose son was killed on a Railroad Track when he was twelve. Every year she went to his gravesite and took flowers. I saw the sadness in her eyes and felt her pain after seeing pictures of him as a young man. Another son died in Police Custody when he was in his twenties, and her pain doubled yet she did not complain. Her strength in the midst of so much loss had me asking where it came from. Now I know that it is something deep within us, that we draw from to continue living our lives.
The night the call came about my grandson being killed, I felt that pain, and it took me to my knees. Now I know how she felt and feel the same pain as birthdays, Holidays, and family gatherings come and go. It is a pleasure to be in the Love Balm Project and for a moment bring my grandson’s memory to life. Kerry Baxter Junior’s life was taken on January 16, 2011; in East Oakland California; in front of Saint Anthony’s Church on a Sunday. His younger brother Kmani reminds me of him in his mannerisms, and sometimes I have to stop myself from calling him, “Kerry”. Kerry was his older brother (by six years), his best friend, and confidante. We have some wonderful memories to hold us until; we too shall pass that way…,
It is hard to watch Cat Brooks reenact me in the performance. She plays the part so well that she embodies me and those feeling of loss and anguish surface, yet again. The question in my mind is, how would Kerry want to be remembered? He was always smiling and full of energy. Kerry loved music, maybe not the kind I liked, as I reminded him, but his own beat and style. It is important for those of us still living to show up and share the life and passing of our loved ones.
I understand the Love Balm Project and its mission even more, now that I am a participant. It was cathartic to be there at the Hallowed Ground, where my grandsons’ life was taken. It is somewhat like, “Facing Down the Evil”. We went there like soldiers and boldly stated that Kerry was a living, breathing, Soul, who was loved, and is missed. We made a Liar out of the “Devil”, as the Church folks would say.
I am honored to share this project with Oscar Grants Family and the other families whose children like Kerry Junior, faced an untimely death. Thank you to all of those who made this possible and played a part in my healing process.
Anita L. Wills
Children Soldiers
And the bones sing the pain
of Tutsi children with
parents lost and separated
Some quite literally
head from shoulders
that could not carry the rages of
war.
There is a church in Nymata where the
skulls on the pews bear witness
to war and children
left alone to run
weary and afraid in
horror they never made.
Mama was a Tutsi and daddy’s
long dead
The mayor of the town ship wants even the
hopes for tomorrow dead.
soldiers black as night
killing all the blacks in sight.
Tutsi civilians in flight
separated, orphaned
Tutsi boys become soldiers,
at one with
death.
Never wanted to be a soldier
but will kill before I accept death
Never wanted to be a soldier
but I will kill rather than
accept death,
from Hutus black like me
Rwandan soldiers gave them guns
and now they soldier
make war on Hutus who kill Tutsis
where did innocence and childhood go?
pictures of babies on TV
orphaned to the tune of 20,000
parents dead the war is over
but does this ever end?
Does it ever end?
Does it ever end?
The tears,
the pain,
the futility,
the death,
the waste,
The ink has turned to blood
and the sun won’t set
on so much
waste
When God gets back
He’s going to be hella pissed.
Genocide: The act of systemically destroying a racial, political, or cultural group. It is a heavy word. It is a word that conjures the worst of human against human atrocity. A word that should cause us all to pause and consider, however once a thing becomes normalized it simply “is”, somehow it becomes bereft of its innate horror. Once a horror has been normalized we find ways to go on. It is the way life works. We push aside the nastiness of existence to be able to continue with the business of living.
The business of life goes on, it does not stop for birth or death; life goes on. It does not stop when time stops and the air whooshes out of our life and we are caught in the headlights of brutal reality. It grinds on. There are events in life that are clarifying. We learn from them; sometimes the lessons are terrible ones. We are remade or undone in such moments. Sometimes time stands still and we feel all the places in which we are broken, unlucky, too short, ill-fated, too late, paradoxically placed, or not enough— life is almost too heavy to carry sometimes, and yet it moves along.
A process like genocide could last decades, centuries, cross continents, become the background symphony to which you struggle to make a life. You grow up in its shadows everything is colored by it. Perhaps you are unaware of its pervasive wear on your existence. It does not care, it erodes your possibilities, whispers your pitfalls, sings your troubles as it draws the contours of your life just the same.
The process of your elimination would be woven into primary and secondary educational spaces, into spaces of justice, in the attitudes of law enforcement and court systems, into the carceral system itself, into the economic system, into the halls of higher learning, into the medical system and influence where and how you live. You would breathe it in and out, walk, sleep, and dream in its presence. You would be shaped by it. It would leak out into how you moved and how you were loved and held in the universe. It would predict your expectations and color your dreams but you might not be aware of it. It might seem like your normal when it is as constant and unfailing as your own breath. It might become a part of your modus operandi if it persisted for generations how could it not become a part of your warped normal?
And so it is for North American African families in North America, the business of our lives grinds on in the face of its often brutal reality. We have continued to build lives after the middle passage and its enduring legacies. We continued in emancipation pregnant with hope. We continued in the backlash of emancipation resisting with constant movement. We moved out of perceived harms way to places that offered opportunities. We moved to build together. We continued when that building was interrupted. We moved to resist being excluded and ground under in our quasi freedom. We continued as resistance was met with force, brutality, and often murder. We continued. We continued to live on the rough side of the mountain, still eating scraps, trying to emulate the contours of the bar set for us. We continued as jobs left and prisons swelled to bursting with our fathers and sons. We continued as schools fell apart, turned into holding pens for the prisons already bursting at the seams. We continued as daughters and mothers became a part of the human pool flowing into profit-making American carceral institutions. We continued as prices soared while drugs and guns became more accessible than decent food. We continued in disinvested neighborhoods at the hands of slumlords surrounded by churches, liquor stores, festooned with altars that mark the spots where our children fell victim to the mean ways of being targeted for extinction.
We continue traveling on reserves, the means by which we have learned to negotiate the treacherous landscape in which we struggle to make homes and raise healthy families.
Sometimes for the sake of sanity, decency, and our battered selves, we must pause. We open our eyes and we see. We seek understanding. We make justice our business. We stand still in the storm speaking truth for truth’s sake.
Our children are being murdered. Guns should not be easier to come by than food and rent money. The police often do not protect or serve, rather their approach to us is suspicious, demeaning, and often violent. We fear for the safety of young black men in and out of our melting communities. The message that they are targeted has been internalized so well that police execute them at will and they shoot each other on the slightest provocation. We are squeezed beyond belief by our rage, fear, and the grief that we never have time to express, digest or process because another tragedy is always imminent.
Love Balm for my SpiritChild and its iteration, Our Hallowed Ground is a pause in the storm. We intentionally open ourselves to reality. We will speak truth here, we will face our fears, we will focus rage as we acknowledge we are under siege, we will remember here, bear witness, as we lift up our lives, our struggles, and the souls of our, suns/sons that set before fully rising.
Our suns/sons are not statistics. They lived. They were loved. They were dreamed and hoped upon and they are remembered. Our love for them continues, as will we because the business of life does not stop even for death. So we will speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves and our business will include justice for suns set too soon. We will not allow them to be forgotten casualties.
We will resist genocide by calling it by its name. We are awake in the storm. We see. We know what we can’t afford not to know. Our sons live with targets on their backs and we must find a way to move the system that wants to destroy them and by proxy all of us. We must stand firm in our right to life. We must love ourselves. We must change the end of this story.
As an artist I fight with art. Today I hold the term “restorative justice” in my head. I will also take ‘peace’ along as I consider how to be at peace in a state of war where I am left to restore justice to situations already endured. I want my art today to be a machete clearing a way for us to live justly. So this is pro-active justice creation work. In this pause we see, and we want to inspire others to “see.” In this pause we feel, we want to inspire others to “feel”. Eyes opened, hearts opened, we invite change.
#makechangenow, #lovebalmformyspirtchild, #ourhallowedground
-Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD
…bringing consciousness back.
For those of you who did not know Kerry Junior, he was a joy to be around, and always smiling. He was my oldest grandson, and a healthy, beautiful baby boy, born in 1991. His life was cut short when he was killed in front of this church on January 16, 2011. Now each moment I spent with him over nineteen years is engraved in my memory.
Here is a paragraph from an Essay Kerry wrote On Hiroshima:
“If I had to talk to another person about the Atomic Blast, I would say; I am sorry for the loss of your family and that my nation caused such a thing. I ask for your forgiveness from the bottom of my heart. I would ask what I could do to show that my country is not all bad and hateful people, but helpful people as well. I am sorry for what happened on August 6th 1945.”
There is so much I want to share with those of you who did not know him; how smart he was; how handsome he was, and what a promising future he had. I am trying to get use to talking about my grandson in the past tense.
I draw Solace from Ecclesiastes 3:2; which states:
To every thing, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
1. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
2. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
3. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Kerry, my beloved, I cannot believe how quickly nineteen years passed and that you left us so soon. You were my Prince, my oldest Grandson, and my beloved. A part of me is angry with those who took you away from us. However, in Romans 12:19 the lord cautions us, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” Nothing neither the criminal justice system, nor any man can do will compare to the wrath of God. “
Grandson, your smile lit up the room, and you had a way of making me smile even when you were misbehaving. I remember one time when I was trying to grab you, and you slithered out of my arms. I was standing there holding air and could only laugh. You were the trickster who would hide, under blankets and try to scare me. You believed that most people were good and all we had to do was get to know them. You had no idea of the evil waiting for you at this place on the last night of your life. We had a wonderful time at Aunt Kim’s house, in January. It was like old times with you, Kmani, and me in the car. We were just chilling and did not have a care in the world. Seeing you and JeVaughn together brought back memories of us hanging out at the Alameda County Fair. You were so full of energy and took in every site, sound, and smell.
I remember when you were about two years old and did not want to eat a hot dog, because you said you were a Veterinarian, like your dad. I said you mean you do not eat meat, and you said, “Yeah a Veterinarian.” I remember you and I going to look for a Christmas Tree and how careful you were to select the right one. After Christmas, you were upset that we were going to throw that beautiful tree out. You were growing so fast, right in front of my eyes. You were chosen to be on the Leadership Counsel at EdenMiddle School in San Lorenzo, and did not like it. You were upset that they were separating you from your friends. I was proud that you cared about others and took a stand to support them. I remember when you were at MalcolmXMiddle School, and read Harry Potter. When we went to see Harry Potter, and you were, telling me what was going to happen in the movie. You remembered the characters and scenes, just from reading the book. When you graduated from High School, I could see the man you were becoming. You stood so tall and looked so handsome in your cap and gown. I am speaking of memories, because that is all I have now…,
I agonize over the un kept promise I made to you, to bring your dad home. I did not and could not have known that you would leave before the promise was fulfilled. You were your dad’s biggest fan and supporter and I know that his absence hurt you deeply. Rest now Kerry, knowing that we will keep your memory alive, speak your name, share your story, and make positive changes in our community. This is my promise to you Sweet Prince, be at peace amd know, that you will not be forgotten.
The chorus of the song Beaches now plays in my mind;
“Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?
And everything I would like to be?
I could fly higher than an Eagle;
For you were the wind beneath my wings”
Kerry, you are no longer in the flesh and to be absent from the flesh is to be present with God. We are mourning your passing, but the angels are rejoicing and heaven is waiting. We are here to let you know, that you are now free and the Kingdom of heaven waits. Although you are no longer flesh, you are always with us in spirit.
The very first testimony of the Our Hallowed Ground Series is that of Anita Wills. Anita Wills is the grandmother of Kerry Baxter Jr. Kerry was murdered in front of St. Anthony’s Church in East Oakland in Jan 2011. The performance will run approximately 15 minutes. Performances will take place at 3pm and 6pm.
Anita Wills - June 1st And June 2nd
Location: ST Anthony’s Church
1535 16th Ave, Oakland, CA 94606
Community Liaison: Anita Wills
Director: Ayodele Nzinga
Actor: Cat Brooks
Today we took photos for our promotional material for Our Hallowed Ground - A series of site specific performances of testimonies of Bay Area mothers who have lost children to violence. This series of performances curated by The Love Balm Project, is an experiment in how we as a collective of artists and community organizers can collaborate to create impactful theatre that meets local communities in the spaces where violence has been perpetrated. As a launching point for this project, we decided to buy a few tacos from the nearby taqueria, pass them out to the folk on my block, build a street memorial and ask our neighbors what they think about site specific performances of testimonies of violence in the Bay Area.
As Lisa Evans, Crystal Charity and I walked out the door of my house, questions went viral. How do we begin? Is it really a good idea to begin this discussion over tacos? What kind of experiment is this if we cant even control for the temperature of the tacos? And most importantly,how do we excavate the philosophical glamour in bucking at the pigeon who is eyeing the food we’ve set aside specifically for community engagement purposes.
Thankfully, none of the collaborators on this project are bamboozled by the sweet cursive language we use to describe this work in grant applications. We know we don’t know what this will become. Further still, we have a daunting order in holding up our hard sweating portraits of these communities to the faces of these neighborhoods and earnestly asking, “hey, does this look like you?”, “Are you interested in seeing more of this?”, “If not, can we create a new picture together from our scraps?”
With overwhelming gratitude, we happened upon people willing to create with us. Before we knew it, we had constructed a gathering place to remember, eat, share and pass along the way. Somewhere in the middle, we asked the folk on our block how they regard public performance and violence in our neighborhood. Check out a few of the written community responses from our brainstorm session:
“Its something new, change is always good.”
“Too many young dying. If art addresses it by talking about how its wrong, great, but if it glorifies it, no.”
“This symbolic ritual in my opinion represents the memory of children caught in the crossfire and should be acknowledged and respected.” - Maurice Brown
“That looks alittle scary. I thought someone died right here. Thank God. Ive lost too many people. I don’t go to those ( memorials ) anymore, I know people who got shot either right before I got there or right after I left.”
“Theres alot of history they don’t teach our children. They dont want us to be strong.”
“Art is the most important thing in the world.”
“They need to make more art about the violence so the word can get out to help people from get hurt, and to be safe” - Zawana
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We are excited to work with this and other feedback to find new ways of making this work. Please join us for some of the upcoming performances!
Please join us for our very first performance of the series. This performance is based on a testimony of Anita Wills, Grandmother of Kerry Baxter Jr, and will take place at St. Anthony’s Church June 1st and 2nd.
____________________________
Anita Wills - June 1st And June 2nd
Location: ST Anthony’s Church
1535 16th Ave, Oakland, CA 94606
Community Liaison: Anita Wills
Director: Ayodele Nzinga
Actor: Cat Brooks
___________________________
Brenda Grisham - June 15th and June 16th
Location: 7400 Block of Fresno Street, Oakland, Ca
Community Liaison: Brenda Grisham
Director: Arielle Brown
Actor: Cat Brooks
___________________________
Denika Chatman - July 13th and 14th
Location: Muni T- Train, San Francisco
Community Liaison: Denika Chatman
Director: Brit Fraizer
Actor: Lisa Evans
____________________________
Bonnie Johnson - August 24th and 25th
Location: Fruitvale BART
Community Liaison: Cat Brooks
Director: Edris Cooper in collaboration with Cephus Johnson
Actor: Ayodele Nzinga
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Ayanna Davis - Sept 21st and 22nd
Location: 600 block of 54th St, Oakland, Ca
Community Liaison: Ayodele Nzinga
Director: Cat Brooks
Actor: Ayanna Davis
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Yasmin Flores - October 5th and 6th
Location: 52 E Santa Clara St San Jose, CA 95113
Community Liaison: Arielle Brown in collaboration with Yasmin Flores
Director: Rebecca Novick
Actor: Anna Maria Luera
All performances run approximately 15 minutes and will recur between 3pm and 6pm.
The Love Balm Project’s Our Hallowed Ground Series is an Artist-Investigator Project of the Triangle Lab (a joint program of Cal Shakes and Intersection for the Arts), supported in part by The James Irvine Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and MetLife Foundation and Theatre Communications Group.
Come take part in our most recent performance process as we present a workshopped reading of Love Balm for My SpiritChild. Love Balm is a featured play in the SF Playhouse “Our Voices, Our Stories” Festival! Join us at SF Playhouse on FEB 18th at 8pm! Directed by Brit Fraiser.
Two Excerpts from the 2012 Love Balm Performances
Photos From Love Balm Performances 2012
