Amplifying the Black Voice Through Design

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Published: Sep 13, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.21.Article.1
Keywords:
Protest , Anti-racism , Anti-black racism , Abolition , The uprisings protesta , antirracismo , racismo contra las personas negras , abolición , levantamientos

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Terresa Moses
University of Minnesota

Abstract

Minneapolis experienced another devastating occurrence: the murder of an unarmed black man by the police in the midst of the national trial of Derek Chauvin. While the community continued to grieve the injustices against George Floyd, police officer Amy Potter shot and killed Daunte Wright on April 11th, 2021. To inspire unity amongst organizers and protestors, I created typography inspired by the Movement for Black Lives, and messages to unify what we all were, and still are, fighting for. My work is open-source and used on t-shirts, hoodies, posters, and pins, which I organized to be distributed for free within the community. Throughout this visual essay, I will discuss the importance of community protest as a tool for racial justice, and how design can provide an opportunity to support and uplift the voice of Black people.

Article Details

How to Cite
Moses, T. (2022). Amplifying the Black Voice Through Design. Diseña, (21), Article.1. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.21.Article.1
Issue
No. 21 (2022): Design, Oppression, and Liberation (1st issue)
Section
“More-than-textual” Original Articles
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

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Author Biography

Terresa Moses, University of Minnesota

Ph.D. student in Social Justice Education, University of Toronto. She holds a MFA in Design Research and Anthropology from the University of North Texas, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Fashion Design and African-American Studies from the same university. She is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design, the Director of Design Justice, and the Creative Director at Blackbird Revolt, a social justice-based design studio. Her research interests include race and racism; black liberation; abolition; black women and social identity; anti-racism in design pedagogy; design as protest and culture change; and design justice. Some of her most recent publications include ‘Who Holds Knowledge?’ (The International Journal of Diversity in Education, forthcoming); Racism Untaught: Revealing and Unlearning Racialized Design (co-authored with Lisa E. Mercer, MIT Press, in press); and ‘The Strong Black Woman: Using the Racism Untaught Framework to Contextualize the Design of Misogynoir’ (In The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, & Reflection, Allworth Press, 2022).

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