Artist Matty Owens, 22, creates justice-themed artwork at the Dorchester Art Project in Fields Corner. (Courtesy Sam Correa)
On a corner in Egleston Square which I pass almost every day once stood an artistic statement: a mural that doubled as an epitaph and a vision board. The wall was adorned with subaltern messages that resonate to an audience today: I have a dream. Stop the violence. I ll do what I can to survive. One local news station described it as a social blackboard and a cry for happiness, the messages having been painted by local Puerto Rican street youth who called themselves the X-Men.
In seven songs, these Boston artists gave voice to resistance, persistence, and Black joy
By Hassan Ghanny Globe correspondent,Updated December 23, 2020, 1:36 p.m.
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A woman listens to a speaker during a Mass Action Against Police Brutality demonstration in Boston in September.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
The renowned nun, artist, and one-time Boston resident Sister Corita opined that art âdoes not come from thinking, but from responding.â Music exemplifies this notion. Call-and-response is ubiquitous at a live concert, a church sermon, or a New Orleans funeral procession, and the music it produces is one enriched by both human participation and rhythmic syncopation. 2020 delivered a call to action for Boston-based musicians to persist through resistance â and luckily for us, even grow artistically. Whether the conversation falls on communities of color, persons affected by state violence, or those disenfranchised by the current political system, the