CITAS Lecture Series | The Sounds of Blackness: How Gentrification Silences and Displaces Belonging (Nishani Frazier)

Voices of the Dispossessed is a study of gentrification in Durham, NC and its impact on black community members, particularly of East Durham. It borrows heavily from oral history and personal narrative to discuss how gentrification emerges. It also examines how activists strategize around memory preservation to challenge removal. Memory resistance involves the process of combining black notions of the imagined home/place along with the cultural signifiers which make home “alive.” Black imagination defines spatial/social borders, while black aesthetic infuses it with spirit. This talk will focus on black voices about home as cornerstones for instilling life and belonging into place.