The Rocks Cry Out

On June 8, 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in Brooklyn, I took a walk in Prospect Park on a shady path across the East Drive from the Vale of Cashmere, notable for a line of large rocks sheltered under a row of trees. I considered them a fixture in the park because they were very large - some the height of my shoulder - and had been there for many years. I photographed a poignant graffiti statement there, “Protect our beautiful black babies!” - one that was repeated in other locations in the park. The location can be seen highlighted on this map. 

A month later, on July 6, 2020, I returned to discover pasted to that rock and others, careful to leave the graffiti visible, several posters designed to look like stamps with the faces of Black victims of police and other violence: Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain, Eric Garner, Oluwatoyin Salau, Dominique Rem'mie Fells, Jonathan Ferrell and Freddie Carlos Gray, Jr. Each poster has the legend: SayHis/Her Name under their portrait, and the way they died. They were such beautifully designed enlargements of the delicate linework one sees on engraved stamps, and so moving, that I tried to take photos of them as best I could, despite the shady dappled light under the trees. Eventually, I found the artist - David Lawrence Byrd. The posters were enlargements from his Say Their Names stamp sheet - 30 different portraits designed to resemble a typical sheet of stamps. 

In that year there were several memorial places in the park, and I was used to seeing them accumulate artworks and flowers and over time disappear. But this location of protest, which I had some hopes of seeing grow, disappeared more quickly and startlingly than I expected. Two days later, on July 8, I returned to the spot and saw a Caterpillar excavator parked by the rocks, each marked with dayglo orange letters.  

Within a few weeks I was saddened to see that the rocks were gone. As I stood on the spot, I met a woman who told me her children loved to play on those rocks and we commiserated at their disappearance. I wonder where the rocks are and if they bear any trace of their posters. This set of photographs are part of the Brooklyn Resists Project. 

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH's collections? Visit our online gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digitial collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We welcome appointments to research our entire collection of images, archives, maps and special collections. Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreferece@bklynlibrary.org.