Justin Coles, associate professor of social justice education, and three graduate students from the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research (CRJ) have co-authored the article, “Black Artistic Imaginaries and the Endemicity of Anti-Blackness in the U.S. University,” published in the journal “Alliance for African Partnership Perspectives.” 

The article examines, among other topics, the transformative healing potential of art, especially for Black communities. The article’s case study features an art-making event hosted by CRJ during the fall 2021 semester in response to an anonymous, anti-Black letter that was sent to Black students and organizations.

“The entire point of our article,” Coles says, “was to really think about ‘how do we use Black art as a sort of corrective or counterweight to the larger climate and context of anti-Blackness that really is present in society and particularly in society’s institutions, like our institutions of higher education?’”

Coles, Gorana Gonzalez, a doctoral student in developmental science, and Imani Wallace, a doctoral student in social justice education, share insights into the publication process in this video discussion.

“Black Artistic Imaginaries” features original artworks created by UMass Amherst students at CRJ’s 2021 event. Coles and his co-authors asked participants to describe their works and to put them into context. Oral communication was the de facto methodology for the article, he said.

“Many of us in our work sort of have a natural storytelling component built-in,” Coles explains. “This sort of oral communication aspect, which is big in qualitative work, but also is very essential I would say, into the Black oral tradition, of just speaking and being in community and sitting at the foot of others to hear their stories.”