““We love deeply and demand healthy, thriving lives for ourselves and our communities. Our Rage is rooted in Love.””
Love & Rage was inspired and envisioned by RYSE members, honoring queer Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) young people in Richmond, CA.
The initial idea for the mural within RYSE Commons was born through RYSE’s Designing Belonging program, in partnership with California College of the Arts (CCA), CCA professor and architect Shalini Agrawal, and artist and activist Jason Wyman in 2020. RYSE members Emani Mason, Nyree McDaniels, Daylen Foster, Darius McCain, and Marlen Gonzalez partnered with CCA students to envision a mural that embodied the RYSE value of Love & Rage.
Young people articulated a portal that connected their love and rage; they envisioned scenes that demonstrated the injustices that exist in Richmond and are mirrored throughout the world. They also hoped to highlight the intersectionality, power, struggle, and joy of the Richmond community. They defined scenes of celebration and peace, as well as protest, and wanted the mural to create a sense of belonging for each viewer to see themselves represented in the art.
Ideation sessions continued into 2021 in partnership with East Bay Getting to Zero, Nahid Ebrahimi, RYSE’s Alphabet group members, Lulu Fierro and Jason Madison, and local muralist and former RYSE staff, Agana Espinoza (DJ Agana). Over Zoom meetings and jamboards, RYSE members reflected on the original mural ideas and the need to highlight the LGBTQ+ youth culture of Richmond & Contra Costa County, as well as the style, power, and creativity of Black, Indigenous, Youth of Color.
Agana presented mural drafts to the team, who offered feedback and selected the final design. The mural was completed in January 2022 by Agana, with support from artists Vogue, Keena, Kufue, and Shishi, as well as RYSE members and staff. The mural reflects RYSE members’ cultures, communities, and power: honoring those who came before us as well as those who work to create more safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC youth. The mural includes a dedication to those that passed away - founding RYSE member Kenji Jones and Clinical Director Marissa Snoddy. Love & Rage’ was gifted to RYSE by East Bay Getting to Zero.
Rayana: “Love & Rage” represents having such a passion or love for something or someone to the point where sometimes the results that you’re looking for can make you enraged. But even through all of that, you still have a loving and respectable kind of attitude to get you to the point where you want to go.
Nyree: “Love & Rage” makes me think of solidarity with people that you love and the stress of family members that you used to love. It just reminds me of present love and past love, basically.
Jason: Some people, when they come here, some of them could come here angry. We could just give them a lot of love and then they come out and they feel love.
Mural Figure’s Face
The facial features of our main figure are the creation of a series of youth ideation sessions that took place in 2020 and 2021. Youth voiced that they wanted the figure to have features that represented the whole of their community – from the afro puffs, to the shape of their nose and lips, to the edges, to the brows and eyelashes. This figure is a culmination of youth vision, dreaming, and identity here in Richmond/West Contra Costa.
I am genuinely drawn to the lady’s face as well as her hair. I think that it’s very gorgeous and I love Agana’s work.
I’m more drawn to faces ‘cause I’m more of a facial artist, and I feel like a face is the window into anyone’s soul. And the souls on that canvas really speak to me in a very spiritual way.
— Nyree McDaniels, RYSE Visual Arts AMP Intern
Huipil
A huipil is the most common traditional garment worn by indigenous women from central Mexico to Central America. This garment has come to represent indigenous solidarity and defiance amid oppression.
Dashiki
The dashiki is a colorful garment that covers the top half of the body, worn mostly in West Africa. Following a surge of cultural pride in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the dashiki found its place celebrating Afrocentric clothing. Worn as a sign of black pride, the dashiki showed unity among the black community.
I think one, or really two of the main pieces that I was drawn to was the dashiki because I have that exact same one. And just the representation of minorities which really connected with me, especially since having a Black young female front and center. It screams volumes.
— Rayana Butler, Member Engagement Assistant + Former RYSE Member
Pride Heart
The pride heart represents RYSE’s liberation and creation work with LGBTQ+ people of color in Richmond, as well as our partnership with East Bay Getting to Zero, a local organization committed to health equity and healing for all people impacted by HIV.
I think that the sage is really dope. I actually brought up the sage and copal, which are just ancestral practices of cleansing and purifying. And I also told them to add the pride heart, you know, and the shining rays on the [figure], all that. It’s really cool.
— Lulu Fierro, Member Engagement Assistant + Former RYSE Member
Sage
This represents one of RYSE’s seven values: Healing Centered, which is respecting and honoring the wisdom of our lived experiences on journeys toward well-being.
Sage, commonly named “Sacred Sage,” was first burned as a healing practice by the First Peoples of the Western United States. It was used to remove unwanted energy, to ask the spirits for blessings, prosperity, protection, and more.
Burning sage was a way of communing with the spiritual realm and connecting to the spirit of the plant and the earth. It is important to honor native cultures and their practice as we continue to use sacred sage for our own healing.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who "dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia." Throughout her career, Lorde published poetry that explored identity and sexuality, while demanding social and racial justice. In addition to writing about and uplifting the lives, power, and struggles of Black queer women, Lorde also wrote about the experiences and struggles of BIPOC youth.
“Without community, there is no liberation.”
“There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
James Baldwin was a Black American writer, activist, and preacher. With a career spanning over 30 years, Baldwin wrote several essays, novels, plays, and poems about homosexuality, interracial relationships, and experience of being Black in America. By describing life as he knew it, Baldwin created socially relevant, psychologically penetrating literature that became known across the world.
He was also a leading voice in the Civil Rights Movement, known for his insightful work that gave voice to the African American experience and sought to educate white Americans on what it meant to be Black.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Marissa Snoddy (1985-2021)
Our former Clinical Director and beloved member of the RYSE family, Marissa always reminded us that healing is our birthright and we commit to staying grounded in the love, rage, and joy she called us into.
It is vital to mark and acknowledge the tremendous impact Marissa’s leadership and service to the work funded by and in partnership with John Muir Health. Her deep and intentional partnership with young people in crisis; her dedication to believing young people and believing in their power and ability to heal; and her commitment to creativity, culture and collective care at the root ending violence in all its forms. As a practitioner and supervisor, Marissa’s powerful life and beautiful spirit have profoundly influenced the wellbeing of program participants and RYSE’s approach to Beyond Violence in over the past 3 years as well as into the future.
For people who don’t know Marissa, she was a really bubbly, really cool, quiet person. When you get to know her, she’s not as quiet. But she was real cool and really fun to hang out with. And her presence – you could tell when her presence was in the room.
— Jason Madison, RYSE Performing Arts AMP Intern
Kenji Jones (1992-2015)
Kenji joined RYSE during our inaugural year (2008). Kenji held and embodied great courage, love, and audacity. Kenji was who he was, never afraid to live in all his possibilities, and by extension, enabling others to be who they were in all their possibilities. He was the visionary behind RYSE’s first (and Richmond’s first) Pride month in 2009. He helped to activate RYSE’s Alphabet Group and held us lovingly accountable to the priorities and needs of BIPOC queer and trans youth in our community. Kenji’s life was cut short in 2015. His loss and remembrance remain palpable. We stay committed to keeping his tenderness and tenacity alive. With love and rage for all our liberation.
Marsha P Johnson (1945-1992)
Marsha P. Johnson was a Black trans activist, drag performer, and survivor. She was a prominent demonstrator in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and the subsequent Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970s. She was also a known advocate for sex worker rights, the rights of unhoused trans youth, and the fight to end the AIDS epidemic.
Although Marsha initially went by “Black Marsha,” she eventually settled on Marsha P. Johnson. The “P” stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which is what Marsha would say in response to questions about her gender.
“History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable. It happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities.”
Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015)
Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese American civil rights and labor activist. Her support for causes such as the Black Power movement, feminism, and the environment spanned over 70 years. Most of her activism was concentrated in Detroit, where she met her husband, fellow Detroit activist James Boggs. Throughout her life, Grace Lee Boggs maintained the core belief that if people worked together, they could accomplish positive social change.