CPCP Catalyst Initiative: Champaign

Catalyst Initiative ROUND 3

Latrelle Bright, writer and theatre maker, worked with Carol Hays

of Prairie Rivers Network, championing clean, healthy rivers and lakes and safe drinking water. Their work centered on Latrelle’s passion for making performance about our relationship to water and her skills as a cultural worker, a poet, and artsbased facilitator towards creating a space for a group of African Americans to overcome historic and current barriers to accessing nature. Their story over a year of collaboration is one of deep listening, trust and relationship building, risk-taking, and inviting a love for water.

Champaign

CENTER FOR PERFORMANCE AND CIVIC PRACTICE C H A M PA I G N - i

Questions —How can we use art to engage African American folks with water in a nature setting?

—What are the historic and current barriers to this engagement, and what does it take to overcome them?

—How can we invite African American community members who have been historically excluded or are currently discouraged from using public water sources to feel safe traveling to nature?

“There is no new water.”

Carol C H A M P A I G N

- ii

THE PARTNERS

2

WATER IN ILLINOIS

4

THE IMPULSE

6

THE PLAN

10

DROPLETS 14 JOURNEY TO WATER

16

RIPPLES 24 C H A M PA I G N - 1

The Partners

Carol Hays Latrelle Bright

C H A M PA I G N - 2

Latrelle Bright is a theatre maker and arts advocate. She served as founding artistic director of The Renaissance Guild - San Antonio’s Black theatre company, Director of Audience Development for Voices of the South in Memphis, Assistant Program Director for the Heifer Theatre Project with Heifer International, a world hunger relief and sustainability organization in Little Rock and most recently as Program Director for the Social Issues Theatre Program at the University of Illinois. Latrelle’s work is deeply rooted in community. As a director/performer, she creates pieces focused mainly on issues of labor and the environment.

As a facilitator she develops arts-based civic dialogue workshops for local groups and events.

She has received awards for her innovative programming, writing and directing and is one of the Young Leaders of Color for TCG. She graduated from the University of Memphis with an MFA in Directing.

Carol Hays served as the Executive Director of Prairie Rivers Network, Illinois’ only statewide group that focuses on clean water and healthy rivers and is Illinois’ affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation. Prior to joining PRN, she was President of The Strategic Collaboration Group, a capacity building consulting practice she founded in 2002. For over 13 years, Carol provided technical assistance to federal and state system leaders to advance systems changes for more effective outcomes. She has provided training and support for community based coalitions in data driven, outcome based planning, leadership development, strategic communications, policy change strategies, and evaluation. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science.

Prairie Rivers Network draws upon sound science and works cooperatively with others to advocate for public policies and cultural values that sustain the ecological health and biological diversity of water resources and aquatic ecosystems.

Champaign-Urbana Changemakers is a group of entrepreneurs, professionals, artists, art enthusiasts and other like-minded people in the CU area engaging community using art and entrepreneurship as a vehicle and social justice as the fuel. CU Changemakers are committed to creating spaces where communities of color can thrive in the Champaign Urbana Area.

T H E PA R T N E R S

C H A M PA I G N - 3

Water in Illinois The state of Illinois, except for the Lake Michigan watershed, is part of the Mississippi River Basin, the fourth largest watershed in the world. Illinois contains 24 major watersheds. Illinois has over 120,000 miles of rivers and streams that provide essential drinking water, industrial water, habitat, agricultural water, and flood control.

Source: Prairie Rivers Network

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY WATERSHEDS

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY RIVERS

Embarrass Kaskaskia Sangamon Vermillion-Wabash Wabash River Valley

Embarrass Kaskaskia Middle Fork Sangamon Vermillion

C H A M PA I G N - 4

W AT E R I N I L L I N O I S

“Water depends on you, but you depend on water more.�

Carol

T H E P A R T NWEAT R SE R I N I L L I N O I S

C H A M PA I G N - 5

The Impulse “I’ve been curious about nature for a long time. I would often visit nature clubs and was the only Black person there.”

Latrelle

“I have always been curious and in awe of and drawn to water. I was lucky enough to grow up in a family privileged to be able to go to water and experience it in many different places. But it wasn’t until I moved to a river and learned what it meant to be a steward of that river that I saw my ability to use the gifts that I have in a way that can really connect other people.”

Carol

Carol’s interest in advocacy work began when she and her family moved to a house on a polluted section of the Sangamon River. She and her husband dug an abandoned washing machine out of the river and then held a river clean up day with community members and pulled 2.5 tons of garbage out of the river. The neighbors then created a conservation group to hold yearly river clean ups and began a movement to encourage local residents to value their waterways.

C H A M PA I G N - 6

THE IMPULSE

“I want people to fall in love with water. If people love water, they will want to protect the nature that we all depend on.”

Carol

Latrelle and Carol met when Latrelle expressed interest in volunteering with Prairie Rivers Network. Carol became excited when she learned of Latrelle’s work as a water-conscious theatre artist and they began a conversation of how Latrelle could use her artistic skills to engage residents in dialogue about watershed health and the competing pressures, economic and environmental, that threaten water quality. As a theatre maker, Latrelle has created and performed work exploring the deeply rooted relationships between Black people and water in nature.

THE IMPULSE

C H A M PA I G N - 7

AMERICAN WATERS by Latrelle Bright

C H A M PA I G N - 8

THE IMPULSE

The water then is the water now.

It’s still here. And it stores information. It remembers.

But, it can’t talk. Damn. What would water tell us?

B.C. Before colonization We were skilled water people and shared knowledge with the Europeans when they arrived. We navigated our inland waterways. Trade port islands of the Swahili kingdoms used to exchange with the Muslim and Asian worlds. It is known that a dhow transported a giraffe to the Chinese Emperor’s court in 1414.

We built mighty things like, Bogandan War Canoes that stretched to 80 feet and could carry 100 men or more.

There is great speculation that Malian sailors reached the coast of pre-Columbian America at least 200 years B.C. Before Columbus.

Our ancestors were excellent swimmers.

And Miles off of African shores, feeling in their cores that wickedness was present, those who could jumped ship and swam home.

Those who could not...

The Mississippi America’s carotid artery Minnesota to Louisiana 2,348 miles Catch it right, it is your friend Catch it wrong, it is your foe Sold! down the river!!

Catch it wrong, it is your foe Catch it right, it is your friend Making space for you to cross The currents carrying you away from Lost scents (sense)

THE IMPULSE

C H A M PA I G N - 9

The Plan “How do we create a figurative and literal journey to water?”

Latrelle

C H A M PA I G N - 1 0

T H ET HI M E PPUL LASNE

“We have observed the killing of African Americans in varied public spaces in recent years: their father’s condominium courtyard, a gas station, a pavillion in a park, the middle of the street, on street corners, and in their own homes; as well as the recent onslaught of police calls on African Americans in Starbucks, hosting summer parties, at cookouts, selling water, ordering in restaurants, etc.

Consequently, my spirit has begun to ponder: Where exactly do people of color belong? What public spaces can people of color occupy without menace?”

Nicole Anderson Cobb - Journey to Water participant.

Source: Smile Politely “Where we belong: Is there room for African Americans outdoors?”

Latrelle and Carol attended a two-day convening in Phoenix, Arizona along with the other members of the Catalyst Initiative cohort. At this convening, they conceptualized many potential projects: a game that introduces people to watersheds, a photography project, and song workshops. They imagined hosting these events at all five rivers in Champaign County with five different groups of participants. They soon recognized that while they could come up with many ideas, they needed to be in conversation with residents to hear about what barriers might exist to visiting public lakes and rivers.

“A point of challenge was realizing that our Journey to Water format could not be a one-size fits all destination. In the true spirit of civic practice and the meaning of journey, ‘building relationship’ with each group is now embedded in the journey itself. We are referring to these building blocks as droplets that will take the form of small gatherings with key people from each group where we can learn more about needs to help shape the Journey to Water experiences.”

Carol

THE PLAN

C H A M PA I G N - 1 1

Latrelle and Carol began the work of building relationships with potential partners and participants. After spending time in conversation with a couple of different community groups, Latrelle and Carol decided to scale back their idea to host events at all five rivers and began plans for a listening event in May of 2018 with Champaign-Urbana Changemakers, a group of professionals who gather people of color together in spaces where they aren’t often visible.

“It’s too much for the first round to try and reach five different groups for the five different rivers we wanted to focus on. That feels like a bigger project. We want to instead take our time building relationships with one group in this initial phase.”

Latrelle

Carol and Latrelle also knew that they needed additional partners for potential participants of color to feel safe and welcomed in places they have been historically and currently excluded from and they began to build relationships with the Urbana Park District and the Champaign County Forest Preserve.

C H A M PA I G N - 1 2

THE PLAN

“There is safety in numbers. But what happens if a large group of people of color show up to a place where they don’t often go? An invitation would have to come from someone they trust. And who else needs to be involved? How do we need to partner with park officials to make sure that white folks don’t call the police on them?”

Latrelle

“[...] in this climate of heavy African American surveillance nationally, the legacy of sundown laws across Central Illinois communities and continued residential segregation across Champaign County, it is deeply unnerving to drive into very rural forest preserve sites with no other African Americans present as fellow participants, guides, or presenters. Yet another challenge is the sobering recognition that all of these preserves were formally Native American lands who are no longer in possession of these lands due to forced dispersal.”

Nicole Anderson Cobb - Journey to Water participant.

Source: Smile Politely “Where we belong: Is there room for African Americans outdoors?”

“If we expect to connect people to water, it’s really about access.

How do we create access?”

Carol

THE PLAN

C H A M PA I G N - 1 3

Droplets

“I had a strong connection to water as a kid.”

Droplets Participant

C H A M PA I G N - 1 4

DTRHOEP LDERTOSP L E T S

Carol and Latrelle hosted the May listening event with members of CU Changemakers to invite them to share personal experiences with bodies of water, both natural and human-made. They called this listening event “Droplets”.

“We started planning a larger journey to water and realized we needed more information, we needed to scale down our plan to droplets. Connection to water can be a very deep and personal thing.”

Latrelle

During the event, Latrelle invited the five participants to write poetry inspired by water, shared poetry written by Black writers about nature and guided the group through a series of questions asking folks to think about their personal connection with water.

− When you think of water - what comes to mind? − Where do you go to connect with water? − Why don’t you connect with water? − If I were a body of water, I would be…. − In what ways has water been special to you? − How do we talk about water in our community?

“You could tell that people in their soul would be connected to water. I thought we would have this great conversation about this, but what I heard was that they all felt very disconnected from water, they may have been connected to water as children, but have become disconnected as adults. They don’t go to enjoy water often, and when they do, it’s a dammed lake, not a free-flowing river. We talked about reasons why they felt disconnected - it was very eyeopening for me. But at the end of the conversation, people were saying - maybe I want to have a journey to water.”

Carol

DROPLETS

C H A M PA I G N - 1 5

Journey to Water

“Does this event need to be restorative, ceremonial? And we need to be thoughtful about invitation language, we can’t use a phrase like ‘going down the river’. We need to talk about intention, to reclaim this waterway for ourselves. How do we overcome fear and barriers and create a welcoming space?”

Latrelle

C H A M PA I G N - 1 6

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

“I was so excited to go to the water that I didn’t sleep the night before.”

Journey to Water participant

Building from what they heard in the droplets conversation, Latrelle and Carol began work on an event that would invite a small group of African American Champaign residents to a day of activities on a natural waterway. They collaborated with CU Changemakers to bring this group of folks together. They had initially hoped to host the day on the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, but because of low water flow they switched the event to Homer Lake, part of the Champaign County Forest Preserve.

Carol and Latrelle arranged for transportation for the group, and planned a day of hiking, food, canoeing, painting, and an excerpt of Latrelle’s performance work connected to water. The group started the day at the nature center and were given a tour by the forest preserve staff.

“The Forest Preserve staff really wanted to show up and be a host for the project. We started at the nature center and there were staff members dedicated to hosting our group.”

Carol

“We had an amazing, challenging time rousting families to participate in the project. Some of our participants were part of a running joke from another event about getting Black folk into the woods. So that undercurrent and its nod to some deeply buried trauma and truth was just below the surface.”

Sam Smith - Droplets and Journey to Water participant

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

C H A M PA I G N - 1 7

“Interestingly, as our youth descended from the buses and headed for the play structures near our picnic area, white park visitors moved rapidly to depart the play structures when they saw our youth group approaching. Similarly, 100 or so feet from the play structure, a white fisherman gathered his pole and departed the water when we arrived. It was as if our presence set off an internal alarm that triggered immediate white flight.”

Nicole Anderson Cobb - Journey to Water participant; Source: Smile Politely “Where we belong: Is there room for African Americans outdoors?”

“I was aware on several occasions of the curious gaze of other (white) visitors to the natural area. And it seemed that my presence (and that of our host, who is also white) served as reassurance to those folks, as if that made it OK for a group of Black families to enjoy the lake. I was aware of the many times I had visited the lake without fear or discomfort, knowing unconsciously that I was welcome in that space.”

Emily Laugesen - Droplets and Journey to Water participant

C H A M PA I G N - 1 8

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

“We ended up having 20 people who were fully engaged, including 6 youths. There was something connective about the small group, we had time to do all the activities, people had time to get to know to each other.”

Latrelle

“I led two hikes and there was an opportunity to see the river from above, so we stopped and talked about the river and its connection to the broader river system, we talked about the dam on the lake and other dams in general and their impact on rivers and generally got to know each other. The part I enjoyed the most came at the end of the day when we all sat in a circle and shared what we got from the day.”

Carol

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

C H A M PA I G N - 1 9

C H A M PA I G N - 2 0

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

“Latrelle’s project created a means to examine the culture of distance from and fear of water in Black communities that is one outcome of the trauma of the slave trade and centuries of oppression.”

Emily Laugesen - Droplets and Journey to Water participant

“So much of our talk at the droplets was why people of color don’t often go out into nature or into water, but this experience pushed all of that to the side. Many of them had never gone kayaking or canoeing, but they were unafraid. There were parents who didn’t know how to swim who put on a life vest and got into a canoe and kayak and loved it. Their kids saw them do that, even though they were apprehensive. They wanted their kids to not be afraid to do things that the parents might be hesitant to do. Everyone had a really, really lovely time.”

Latrelle

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

C H A M PA I G N - 2 1

“One of the most beautiful elements of the day was to see the young teenagers who had chosen the single-person kayaks transform from absolute beginners into confident kayakers, skimming across the water and even gathering for a few splash

C H A M PA I G N - 2 2

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

fights with their paddles. In that context, the performance and readings that Latrelle shared later in the day about the histories of African peoples as boat-builders and navigators had deep resonance.�

Emily Laugesen - Droplets and Journey to Water participant

J O U R N E Y T O W AT E R

C H A M PA I G N - 2 3

Ripples “We have used artists as a vehicle for conversation in the past, but it’s not had this kind of power. It’s the engagement by the participants and not just the passive experience of the art that is really important here. There was a point when Latrelle poured water into everyone’s hands and read a poem about the origins of water. It was simple but you could tell that everyone was really thinking about this water as she was reading. You can look at beautiful paintings of water, but to have that physical part be involved in it, that was the conversion point for me, it really got people thinking of water and it’s meaning. Even the kids.”

Carol

“I hope that our local outdoor community can come to ‘true seeing’ regarding who is absent from local outdoor experiences in programs, program content, participants, and in leadership. In this way, such ‘true seeing’ can foster fuller and more diverse experience of the public spaces that we all share and support with public and private dollars.”

Nicole Anderson Cobb - Journey to Water participant; Source: Smile Politely “Where we belong: Is there room for African Americans outdoors?”

“This project gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we design projects and initiatives, the nature of an invitation, and ways that white-dominated institutions can work to support the leadership of people of color.”

Emily Laugesen - Droplets and Journey to Water participant

C H A M PA I G N - 2 4

RIPPLES

“I was reminded that water as an element has the potential to unite Africans across the diaspora. To date most of my forays into water related issues have been segregated with majority people leading, designing, financing the meager projects of small wells and ablution blocks, etc. There is generally an absence of critical race analysis of these kinds of initiatives. Candace Hunter, an artist from Chicago, highlighted the absence of women of color in discussions and development projects related to global water issues. This is in spite of the fact that women and girls in developing nations are often more direct recipients of benefits and losses in such projects. I’m satisfied to have worked on water and art projects with Latrelle and believe that foundation will be helpful moving forward with other international development projects.”

Sam Smith - Droplets and Journey to Water participant

“The forest preserve is really open to this conversation, which is what I hoped would happen. I am hoping that the citizens advisory council would be open to having someone from CU Changemakers on their council. That is a really positive move that could come out of this. We all left the Journey to Water saying ‘let’s do this again,’ and ‘how can we make this happen for more people?’”

Carol

RIPPLES

C H A M PA I G N - 2 5

Center For Performance + Civic Practice © 2019

Written by Rebecca Martínez Designed by Tanya Rubbak Additional support by Soneela Nankani, Michael Rohd, Sara Sawicki, & Shannon Scrofano THE ANDREW W.

THECPCP.ORG C H A M PA I G N - 2 6

MELLON FOUNDATION