A Prayer for the Black Dead

A Prayer for the Black Dead was a multimedia mourning ritual to venerate the lives of Black people, particularly femmes and LGBTQIA people, who were murdered by the state and affirming Black people’s right to a good death. The performance was part of Honoring the Black Dead: From Demise to Royal Return, a larger event organized by Olka Baldeh at SolTree Alchemy in Oakland, CA, designed to offer “a visual eulogy of the Black dead, especially those who have come upon death violently and at the hands of the state” and to provide a “ritual space to transmute the Black experience towards peaceful death.” The gathering featured work by Mariam Abdalgadir, Isha Rosemond, Angela Hennessy, Sydney Sage Cain, and Aneesah Dryver.