Praise houses were small wooden structures, initially on slave plantations, used for gathering and worship. It was in these secret safe spaces that the ring shout was performed, a traditional African-American movement practice taught to me by my great-grandmother. The ring shout was reborn in the Western hemisphere as resistance to laws intended to dismantle African identity and community.  This full-body rhythmic prayer was performed as congregants would stomp or shout upon the wooden floors, creating a communal drum, secretly preserving their African cultural identity and traditions - all while remembering freedom.  

This work recalls that prayer.

After first resting at Oakland Cemetery to honor the 800+ unmarked graves; then at Emory to acknowledge slavery and dispossession by recalling the tradition of the ring shout; and then at Beacon Hill where it currently recalls the history of a Freedman’s town in Downtown Decatur, erased by the FDR Urban Renewal Act of 1937, the Praise House Project site-specific public art installation directly confronts the resulting systemic inequities by serving as a living monument that invites communal reflection, reconciliation and repair for harms done.

We invite you to join our efforts as a community partner to reach our immediate goal of $150K, to move the structure once again, this time along the path of the 1906 Race Massacre to finally rest at South-View Cemetery in South Atlanta, to acknowledge the victims who rest there alongside some of the most important civil and human rights leaders of our time since.

Join us in our journey of remembrance.