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While the impact of systemic racism on health has always been an issue, much of the conversation in Pittsburgh in recent years has been framed by “Pittsburgh’s Inequality Across Gender and Race,” a 2019 report by the city’s Gender Equity Commission.
Among that document’s awful (but, to many, unsurprising) findings was that maternal mortality in Black pregnant women and incidences of cancer and cardiovascular disease in Black men exceed not only those for white people here, but also those for Black people in most other cities.
Putting a face to such inequities is the goal of “From Colored to Black,” a storytelling project based in Florida that’s getting a Pittsburgh component thanks to the Demaskus Theatre Collective, with an event Sat., June 17 — on Juneteenth weekend — at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.
The project suggests a way for the arts to effect social change. Its creators are playwright Brittney M. Caldwell and Jeffrey Pufahl, a researcher with the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine (whose programs include Applied Theatre for Health and Music in Medicine).
From Colored to Black solicited oral histories from Black residents of north-central Florida, and got responses that covered civil rights and, more specifically, things like redlining, gentrification, educational inequities, and colorism. The stories included one about Frank B. Butler, a Black man in harshly segregated 1920s St. Augustine who created his own beach for Blacks that became a regional attraction for decades, and whose survival was backed by no less than Martin Luther King Jr.
The stories were adapted into a multimedia presentation that included actors performing live monologues and vignettes, supplemented by video.
Demaskus founder Shaunda McDill met Caldwell and Pufahl through a program presented by Pittsburgh’s Office for Public Art. About two months ago, Demaskus began holding its own, Pittsburgh-centric story circles, at gathering places including Mount Ararat Baptist Church, in Larimer, and Aliquippa’s Uncommon Grounds Cafe. With funding from the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh, the POISE Foundation, and the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh initiative, the group aims to collect 200 stories. The plan is to create a new version of the show that blends some of the Florida stories with Pittsburgh content.
Demaskus hopes to gather some of those stories Saturday, at the August Wilson Center. The afternoon-long program features a screening of a 90-minute video version of the show, followed by community story circles and a barbecue buffet. More story circles will follow in the coming weeks, including opportunities for participants to earn $50 each. Contributed stories could become part of the new Demaskus production.
As McDill puts it, “People really want to share their stories.”
