A socially engaged scholar needs insight, dedication, and, far too often, courage. While still growing up, your precocious eye could see, before many others did, the artistic and cultural importance of the work of Jean Michel Basquiat. You passionately devoted much of your time as an undergraduate and afterwards fitting together the pieces of his work, his life, and the cultural and political forces of his time. As the first Black woman to curate an exhibition at the Guggenheim, you brought the world “Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story.” The show took what had been a slightly regarded work dashed off in response to the death in 1983 of the young, Black artist Michael Stewart from injuries incurred in police custody, and by pairing it with Stewart’s own art and that of others showed us how “Defacement” was actually an iconic work of its time and of ours. Established institutions, artistic and otherwise, do not change easily, as the struggles that you faced in mounting this historic exhibition attest. But such is your devotion to studying the intersections of race, class, gender, and police violence—a place you know all too well. Your brother Clinton is among the too many young, unarmed, Black men to have been killed by police, in response to which you and your mother founded the group Mothers Against Police Brutality. In all of this you have shown how life and scholarship can powerfully be of a piece.
In recognition of your distinguished achievement in socially engaged scholarship, Williams College is proud to honor you with its Bicentennial Medal.