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Welcome to the virtual exhibition "O Lord Don't You Cry For Me. This exhibit in its strong focus on the subject of death was inspired by the curator's grandmother, a elderly African American Alabamian whose innate philosophies inspired the creation of this display.

 

When the subject of death is brought into causal conversation often the response are commonly met with anxiety or dimissial, unable to conjure the weight of grief which has yet to occur. However, the subject matter in conversation among the African American community takes on many forms, striiving in the power of jubilation, recognition, and the collective memories of those whose passed, no longer tethered to their earthly existence.  

 

The following exhibition takes heavy inspiration not from the present,rather the past in the collective acknowledgment of the subject within the African American community. The presented artifacts and media showcases the ancestral ties, the spiritual aspect, associated folklore, and the expressive nature of African American storytelling that authorizes autonomy of a tradition upheld for over three centuries.  

This exhibition like the community which nurtured it does use the perception of death of what was. Rather it invites viewers to see this crafted narrative about death which expanding centuries on American soil.