{"id":25112,"date":"2024-06-14T17:27:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T21:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=25112"},"modified":"2024-08-06T10:09:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T14:09:05","slug":"ife-franklin-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/06\/14\/ife-franklin-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring The Enslaved And Healing At If\u00e9 Franklin’s \u2018Ancestor Processions\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWe\u2019re there to lift up the spirits and the vibrations of the thousands of free and enslaved Africans and African-Americans that are buried there,\u201d If\u00e9 Franklin says of her \u201cEgun Ancestor Procession\u201d<\/a> planned for Copp\u2019s Hill Burying Ground on Hull Street in Boston\u2019s North End at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 15. She also has an \u201cAncestor Procession \/ Sound Bath Ritual\u201d planned for the Lot Lab in the Charlestown Navy Yard at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin\u2019s processions, the Roxbury artist writes, are \u201ccommunity rituals that honor the lives of the enslaved whose burial sites are often forgotten. Each journey offers a healing balm to heavy hearts that are grappling with the difficult history of enslavement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s believed that Europeans brought the first enslaved Africans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s. While the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reports <\/a>that \u201cbetween 1755 and 1764, the Massachusetts slave population was approximately 2.2 percent of the total population,\u201d slavery was common among well-to-do whites. Slavery was only abolished in 1783 when enslaved people successfully sued for their freedom under the Commonwealth\u2019s 1780 constitution, which stated \u201call men are born free and equal, and have . . . the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin notes, \u201cThere are enslaved people buried in Harvard Square. There are enslaved people buried in Brookline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copp\u2019s Hill Burying Ground on Hull Street in Boston\u2019s North End \u201cwas Boston\u2019s largest colonial burying ground, dating from 1659,\u201d according to The Freedom Trail Foundation. Legendary Puritan minister Cotton Mather was buried there\u2014as was Prince Hall, the anti-slavery activist, Revolutionary War soldier, and founder of the black Masonic Order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCountless free African-Americans are buried in a potter’s field on the Charter Street side of the site,\u201d The Freedom Trail Foundation writes<\/a>. More than 1,000 Black people<\/a> are believed to be buried there. Franklin notes, \u201cThere are two headstones at the bottom and the rest of that is empty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ife
Ife Franklin’s Ancestor Procession at Boston’s Copp\u2019s Hill Burying Ground in 2022. (Courtesy Ife Franklin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe go there, we sing, we pray, we ask people to do an ancestor call. We\u2019re there to sing and pray and hold space with some people that had a really hard existence, and here I am,\u201d Franklin says of the program, which is presented with support from the Boston Mayor\u2019s Office of Arts and Culture,\u00a0Old North Illuminated,\u00a0National Parks of Boston, Proverb Agency, and HUB History. \u201cI want to venerate them. I want to hold them in the light and let them know they\u2019re loved and not ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All are welcome to walk in Franklin\u2019s June 15 and 22 processions: \u201cPlease wear white clothing and bring your own seating. White allies\/abolitionists will respectfully follow behind People of Color during the processional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ife
Ife Franklin’s \u201cThe Resurrection of Mark, Phillis, & Phebe\u201d at the Boston Public Art Triennial\u2019s Lot Lab, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, June 13, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Franklin plans a “Processional for Mark, Phillis, and Phebe”<\/a> at the Charlestown Navy Yard at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 22, where her sculptural installation \u201cThe Resurrection of Mark, Phillis, & Phebe\u201d<\/a> is on view as part of the Boston Public Art Triennial\u2019s Lot Lab at 1 5th St. beginning June 10 and continuing throughout the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark, Phillis and Phebe were enslaved in Charlestown in the 1700s by Captain John Codman\u2014an ancestor of the person for whom Boston\u2019s Codman Square is named. \u201cThe way they fought for their freedom is they murdered their enslaver,\u201d Franklin says. They are said to have poisoned Codman. \u201cThe story I heard is Mark was hung, Phillis was burned at the stake, and Phebe was sent to the Caribbean to slave death, to work in the sugar cane fields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin says after Mark was executed in Cambridge, his body was displayed in an iron cage\u2014a gibbet\u2014in Charlestown for two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce I heard the stories of Mark, Phillis and Phebe, I knew I wanted to be involved in uplifting their souls,\u201d Franklin says. Her sculpture at Lot Lab reimagines the gibbet as a cocoon, covered in Nigerian adore, indigo-colored fabric with a quilt-like pattern. It hangs from four metal posts. \u201cA cocoon is a transformative vessel,\u201d Franklin says. She wants it to be beautiful, loving, soft, \u201ctransformative for their souls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat will invite the spirits of Mark, Phillis and Phebe to come to rest. Because personally I think the spirits of Mark, Phillis and Phebe are still locked in that area,\u201d Franklin says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ife
Ife Franklin’s \u201cThe Resurrection of Mark, Phillis, & Phebe\u201d at the Boston Public Art Triennial\u2019s Lot Lab, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, June 13, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Franklin\u2019s mission, her calling from her ancestors, she says, is \u201cto know who they are and speak to their humanity and to understand why they wanted sovereignty like everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re walking and praying homage to them. The program is connected to African-American baptism when people would wear white and walk to the river,\u201d Franklin explains. The procession will also include a meditation and sound bath led by yoga and meditation instructor Marlene Boyette. And participants will be asked to answer a writing prompt: \u201cIf you could speak to Mark, Phillis and Phebe, what would you say to them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ife
Ife Franklin’s Ancestor Procession at Boston’s Copp\u2019s Hill Burying Ground in 2022. (Courtesy Ife Franklin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Franklin\u2019s installation and the processions are part of her two-decades-long \u201cIndigo Project,\u201d which has included making \u201cAncestor Slave Cabins,\u201d ring shouts, conjure bottles, drawings, collages, tapestries, and a fictional book and short film imagining a woman enslaved in Virginia in the mid 1800s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are times when it is difficult to feel so much. I\u2019ve had to learn through trial and error, through friends, how to balance all these emotions,\u201d Franklin says. \u201c\u2026There\u2019s no way that we are not walking around with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] from enslavement. When people were liberated from plantations and such we didn\u2019t get therapy. What do you do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin says, \u201cFor them to make it through with those odds just reminds me that we are phenomenal people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think my connection to indigo is a very spiritual connection,\u201d Franklin says. \u201cBecause prior to enslavement Africans grew indigo, they grew cotton, they grew tobacco and rice. They took the best of us during enslavement. They took people who knew things, people who could do things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still carry that magic with us, that conjure,\u201d Franklin says. \u201cAnd that energy is what I instill into my work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 “Ife Franklin\u2019s Ancestor Slave Cabin and Ring Shout,”<\/a> Sept. 11, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0“On Juneteenth, If\u00e9 Franklin Debuts \u2018Slave Narrative\u2019 Film,”<\/a> June 18, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0“Photos: If\u00e9 Franklin\u2019s Juneteenth Celebration,”<\/a> June 21, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0“Artistic Responses To Inequities In Cancer Care For People Of Color,”<\/a> Nov. 27, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ife
Ife Franklin’s Ancestor Procession at Boston’s Copp\u2019s Hill Burying Ground in 2022. (Courtesy Ife Franklin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Ife
Ife Franklin’s \u201cThe Resurrection of Mark, Phillis, & Phebe\u201d at the Boston Public Art Triennial\u2019s Lot Lab, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, June 13, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re there to lift up the spirits and the vibrations of the thousands of free and enslaved Africans and African-Americans that are buried there,\u201d If\u00e9 Franklin says of her \u201cEgun Ancestor Procession\u201d planned for Copp\u2019s Hill Burying Ground on Hull Street in Boston\u2019s North End at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 15. She also has an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,109,110],"tags":[1268,878,1267,413],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25112"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25128,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25112\/revisions\/25128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}