The “Divided City” initiative at Washington University in St. Louis awarded community grants to seven recipients in the St. Louis metro area to support community work or creative practice related to urban segregation. The grants are co-sponsored by the university’s Office of the Provost as part of the 10-year “Here and Next” strategic plan.
Recipients include:
- The Village Path & Undo Bias for “UnMasc: A Men’s Storytelling Event,” to highlight how dominant social ideas about masculinity affect men
- Melissa Singleton for Goodie House, a space for emerging poets and established writers that highlights the work of queer and Black, Indigenous and other minority authors
- Robert E. Green, to establish a multimedia site-specific art installation that speaks to the spatial displacement and systemic oppression of African Americans in St. Louis
- Shabez Jamal for “Somewhere Above the Earth and Beneath God (I Found Home)” to explore the Black vernacular (space/photographs/objects) as sites of preservation and self-realization for Black people of queer experience
- Youth Council for Positive Development for the Phoenix Project, an oral history project where youth in the 22nd Ward will interview and gain insights from elders
- Harvey Galler for the STL Reentry Collective, to create a documentary film about three formerly incarcerated individuals who re-enter their communities
- St. Louis Story Stitchers Art Collective for “The WHY of MY City” to produce podcast episodes in which African American youth talk with professionals about topics like poverty, violence and disinvestment in Black neighborhoods
The “Divided City,” established in 2014 with support from the Mellon Foundation, is an urban humanities initiative to explore how segregation plays out in cities, neighborhoods, landscapes and buildings. It is a collaboration between the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
