Join us for a multimedia presentation by Ontario Alexander, the Visualizing Abolition Artist in the Archive graduate fellow.

How does music connect us to our collective past and ground us in the present? Take a journey through the UCSC library archives as we unlock moments in abolition and protest movements. From the 1960s to the 2020s, from Slavery to Civil Rights, from Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter, and most recently the Riverfront Brawl, music expresses a depth of emotions that embeds our memories, honors our past, clarifies the present and illuminates the future.

This is the culminating event of the Visualizing Abolition Artist in the Archive Residency pilot program, which fosters creative research and experiential learning about prisons, policing, and the movement for abolition through archival engagements with UC Santa Cruz University Library Special Collections & Archives. This program is sponsored by the Institute for Arts and Sciences and the University Library at UC Santa Cruz.

Image: “Black Panthers from Sacramento, Free Huey Rally, Bobby Hutton Memorial Park, Oakland, CA, #62” from A Photographic Essay on The Black Panthers, Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones Photographs. University of California, Santa Cruz McHenry Library, Special Collections. 

About Ontario Alexander

Ontario Alexander (he/him) is a Cross-Cultural Musicology Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His area of study includes historical musicology in the French Baroque period and the roles of colonial history and theory in music. Other areas of interest include African American Black music history and social theory of music concerning the developments of gospel, blues, and jazz music as acts of political resistance, struggles for freedom, and cultural affirmation. Alexander holds an M.A. in Vocal Performance and an M.B.A. from California State University, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Theater from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. As a multidisciplinary artist, he integrates his art practice into his research.

We are pleased to be part of National Arts & Humanities Month in October.