EXPLORING BLACK MEMORY, IDENTITY, AND FUTURITY: A CENTRAL DISTRICT LEGACY ANALYSIS
- Beverly Aarons
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
by Beverly Aarons
The group exhibition, Central District Legacy, on view at ARTE NOIR through August 3, 2025, takes viewers on a visual journey through Seattle’s historically Black neighborhood—recounting its past, reflecting its present, and imagining its future. Featuring work by artists Myron Curry, Mohamed Gabriel, Akoiya Harris, Rodney H. King, Troy R. Miles, and Zorn B. Taylor, the show offers a multifaceted tribute to the legacy and evolving identity of the Central District. Each artist brings a distinct, intimate vision, rendering their perspectives in vibrant relief through painting, photography, and collage.
ASSERTING BLACK HUMANITY
In Rodney H. King’s I Am A Man, we travel to the 1960s—both aesthetically and historically. A crowd of protesters in the background holds the iconic “I AM A MAN” signs, while four sharply dressed Black men stand defiantly in the foreground—stingy-brim fedoras, multicolored outfits, facial hair, a pair of sunglasses, and a cigarette dangling from one man’s lips. They carry no signs—no proclamation that they are men, no compulsion to explain. One of them holds Elijah Muhammad’s Message to the Blackman in America, first published in 1965—a text rooted in self-determination, spiritual discipline, and racial sovereignty. The painting reads not as a plea for recognition, but as a proclamation of identity. These men are not asking to be seen as human—they are asserting it. Their presence is calm, deliberate, and unbothered. The protest continues behind them, but they have already fully asserted the power of their existence.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had just passed, but Seattle remained deeply segregated. Due to redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and real estate steering, the Central District was effectively the only neighborhood where Black residents could live. Like many teens in the community at the time, Elmer Dixon and his brother Aaron were just becoming politically aware—a political awakening that would lead them to found the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968.
UNCAGED BLACK GENIUS
In Myron Curry’s Jimi Vibes, the rock-and-roll sensation Jimi Hendrix is rendered not just as a historical figure but as a spiritual force—vibrant waves of color, playfully splashed, pushed, and splattered across the canvas, lifting him out of time and space. Born and raised in Seattle’s Central District, Hendrix’s internationally recognized musical genius was forged in a childhood marked by poverty and instability. But by 1967, he had risen from the margins to global stardom. And despite his untimely death just a few years later, Curry’s portrait resists the usual tragic arc. Instead, Hendrix hovers in sacred stillness—a Black visionary fully at ease, immortalized not in pain, but in power.
Both Myron Curry and Rodney H. King portray the Central District’s past with a sense of nostalgia and historical reverence. But the Central District Legacy exhibition doesn’t remain in the past—it also transports us into the present through the work of artists Akoiya Harris and Troy R. Miles.
NURTURING BLACK SPIRIT
In Akoiya Harris’ Madea’s Garden, an older Black woman reclines in a lush patch of collard greens, a young girl seated nearby—perhaps listening, perhaps learning. The scene suggests more than gardening; it evokes the quiet rituals of cultural transmission: lessons in horticulture, family history, spiritual grounding, and care. Set against a backdrop of sheet music from the 1855 gospel hymn O How I Love Jesus by Frederick Whitfield, Harris' collage is a visual bridge between generations. The elder figure is not just a gardener, but a steward of memory—rooted in the past yet nurturing the present. Through the act of tending a garden and tending a child, Harris depicts how Black matriarchs have historically preserved knowledge not through institutions, but through daily acts of nourishment and care. The result is a scene that feels both sacred and ordinary, reverent and lived-in—a portrait of inheritance, love, and legacy still in bloom.
TENDING BLACK BODIES
In Troy R. Miles’ Bryant Manor Steps, three figures sit on a stoop braiding each other’s hair. The act is tender and rhythmic—rooted in cultural memory, care, and community interdependence. The backdrop is Bryant Manor, a Central District public housing complex built in the 1970s, which has served as home to generations of Black Seattleites systematically excluded from other neighborhoods in the city. The painting radiates a sense of closeness, softness, and fluidity—qualities that speak to the present moment’s evolving understanding of identity and kinship within the Black community. The central figure has their hair braided even as they braid the hair of another, a gesture of relational reciprocity. Their broad shoulders and angular build suggest masculinity, while long hair, jewelry, and the lollipop pressed between their fingers hint at feminine-coded archetypes. Rather than being pinned to one identity, the figure seems to exist in motion—unbound by traditional gender expectations, and embraced within a circle of care.
In Central District Legacy, that circle of care, reverence, and hope expands to suggest how identity and culture might converge in the future. While artists Zorn B. Taylor and Mohamed Gabriel don’t explicitly frame their work as futuristic, within the context of this exhibition, the subtext of their visual narratives points toward how the future of the Central District could evolve.
EMBRACING BLACK IMMIGRANTS
In Mohamed Gabriel’s Royalty, a young Black girl waves from the back of a brilliant yellow convertible, a Sudanese flag trailing beside her. The scene is radiant with color and movement—full of joy, presence, and public celebration. Though the Central District has been historically defined by African Americans who migrated from the South—especially Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas—this photograph suggests a future that is globally expansive, shaped by the presence of recent African immigrants, much like Gabriel, who is Sudanese American. Without fanfare, the image asserts belonging: this child is part of the legacy, part of what’s next. Her presence on the street—watched, admired, documented—embodies a community that is evolving, expanding, and still deeply alive.
EXPANDING BLACK FUTURES
In Zorn B. Taylor’s Descendant of the Challenger, this portrait feels suspended in time. A Black woman smiles directly at the camera, her face radiating joy, her expression open and assured. There’s no background—only white space, vast and undefined. The image could be from the past or the future. She could be an ancestor or someone not yet born. The title points to lineage—descendant, challenger—suggesting both inheritance and triumph. In a group show grounded in place, Taylor’s portrait is spatially unbound. It speaks not to what the Central District has been, but to what it might yet become.
Taken together, the artworks in Central District Legacy form a mosaic of memory, resistance, and hopeful becoming. They honor the neighborhood’s roots in Black migration and community-building, while also recognizing the shifting contours of the present and the expansive possibilities of the future. From vivid scenes of intergenerational care on public housing steps to photographic portraits suspended in white space, the exhibition refuses to flatten the Central District into a singular narrative. Instead, it offers a layered vision of a community that continues to evolve—one marked by complexity, resilience, and the enduring presence of Black life in all its forms.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beverly Aarons is a writer, artist, and game developer. She works across disciplines, exploring the intersections of history, hidden current realities, and imagined future worlds. She specializes in making unseen perspectives visible and aims to infuse all of her creative work with a deep sense of emotionality. She’s won the Guy A. Hanks, Marvin H. Miller Screenwriting Award, Community 4Culture Fellowship, Artist Trust GAP Award, 4Culture Creative Consultancies Award, and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture smART Ventures grant. She was an ARTS at King Street Station Resident in 2021/2022, and her visual art has been exhibited at Studio 103 and Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. She’s currently producing a play about the future of human migration in collaboration with ShoreLake Arts, and she’s publishing Artists Up Close, a monthly e-magazine/newsletter that features in-depth and intimate profiles of emerging and established artists in the Seattle area and beyond.
Learn more about Beverly and her work here.
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