The Rituals Explained
These gatherings are experienced at a site of interest. The sound art guides us through grounding ourselves, then gently walks us through the history of the site. The spectators are asked to connect to their own beliefs, spirit guides, ancestors as we set intentions in order to manifest equity on site. No religion guides these ceremonies except for what each spectator bring to it within their own hearts and minds. Our presence together ignites the space as a space for change. We carry the light from that initial event with us from that place to continue the work as living amends out in the world.
Performance ritual cleansing in Brentwood, MD
Why Smoke?
Smoke bombs or powdered chalk is usually released during the rituals.
Liz Miller‘s Rituals mirror both natural and spiritual rituals in their formats and processes. In the same way that Mushrooms play a vital role in the environment by releasing millions of microscopic spores, also known as their reproductive organs, into the air as tiny dust-like particles. So do the facilitators of her rituals release smoke bombs to obscure and transform the visual elements of the experience.
Every mushroom is capable of producing up to 100 million spores per hour, dispersing them over great distances.Typically measuring just a few microns, the spores are then carried by the wind to new locations, where they form new mycelial networks. In the same way humans can be transformed by a single event, a single mind shift and it can cause a cascade of different choices in their life from then on. Understanding our history and living our amends can give birth to new neurological pathways.
This process of a mushroom releasing spores is essential for the continuation of fungal species, contributing to the decomposition of organic matter, nutrient cycling, and the overall health of our ecosystems. Much the same for humans, we must continue to let old outdated ways of thinking to be pruned from our psyche, shed it from our minds and allow for new ways to be inspired by art and truth in our everyday.
Video
Performance of outdoor ritual cleansing of Hays-Heighe House at Harford Community College 2023.
Ritual Blessing l of the Montgomery County Jail
This live performance was a 'Ritual Blessing'. The site was infused with a clean healing energy different from what was there previously. Energies of these sites are shifted when black bodies perform with black joy and reflection. We direct our intentions toward manifesting an equitable future.
The live performance was recorded and edited into a film titled 'Remembrance Blessing'. It was then projected onto a building next to the Red Brick Courthouse on Nov 4/5, 2021 on a weekend dedicated to reflecting upon the past tragedies of this area.
The Cleansings of the Lynchings of Rockville, MD (2020)
Film:
title: Randolph, Peck, Diggs-Dorsey
Description:
The performance at VisArts was a ritual cleansing of one of the sites where three African-Americans were lynched in the 1880s. Sidney Randolph was lynched a block from VisArts. Four performers ritually cleansed the space. Each performer will served as a surrogate for one of the lost lives; the creator of the ritual presided as high priestess over the ceremony. The artist Liz Miller conceived the ritual cleansing concept in conjunction with her wearable hair sculptures.
The ritual transforms these headdresses from adornment to artifact. The bond is sealed when the DNA of the wearer is deposited upon the pieces themselves. The sculptures are activated by the black bodies whose liberation and joy propel the ceremony. Not only do they cleanse and transform the energy of the space by their movements, but they are tapping into a rich reservoir of ancestral energy and releasing it into the present. Rather than seeking freedom from the colonizer, true emancipation comes from unlocking what is embedded within.
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The History:
"In 2017, the Equal Justice Initiative published research documenting more than 4,000 racial terror lynchings in America between 1877 and 1950.[1] Based on fanatical fears regarding interracial sex and the desire to maintain white supremacy through an unquestioned racial hierarchy, lynchings during the post-Reconstruction era (1877 onward) in former slave states like Maryland became particularly targeted to terrorize the Black population, often carried out over any infraction, real or imagined.[2] The extra-judicial nature of lynching allowed former enslavers to continue to exert dominance, power, and control over Black people.[3] Maryland’s statewide number of lynchings has not been definitively established, as research is ongoing. The number varies between 28 and 40 depending on the time period under consideration, and the majority took place on the Eastern Shore.[4] Lynching activity nationwide peaked between 1880 and 1900, and at least 20 of Maryland’s cases took place within that period,[5] including the three documented lynchings in Montgomery County: George Peck and John Diggs-Dorsey in 1880 and Sidney Randolph in 1896."
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Peck lived in the Poolesville/Beallsville area his entire life, which was about 22 years. In January of 1880, he was accused of attempted assault on a white girl and arrested by the constable. Before he could be transported to Rockville for a trial, a crowd of local men seized him in the night and hanged him from a tree in downtown Poolesville until he died.
http://montgomeryhistory.org/lynchings-in-montgomery-county/lynchings-george-peck/
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John Diggs-Dorsey (b.1856-1860, d. 1880)
On the morning of July 25, 1880, while James was out of town, Linnie Tschiffely appeared at a neighbor’s house badly beaten, and accused John Diggs-Dorsey (her servant at the time) of raping her and physically assaulting her the night before. After a two-day manhunt that spread out into Maryland and into Washington, D.C., Diggs-Dorsey was apprehended on July 26 while walking along a public road and brought to the County jail in Rockville. Several hours later, in the early morning hours of July 27, the jail was forced by a lynch mob. Diggs-Dorsey was removed from his cell, marched in leg-irons to a place one mile outside town on Route 28 and hanged from the limb of a tree until dead.
https://montgomeryhistory.org/lynchings-in-montgomery-county/lynchings-john-diggs-dorsey/
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Sidney Randolph (b.1868-1870, d.1896)
Sidney Randolph, a native of Georgia in his mid-twenties, was lynched in Rockville, Maryland on July 4, 1896 by an officially-unidentified group of white men from Montgomery County. Sidney was accused by a distraught white man for the gruesome murder of the white man's family. Removed to the jail in Baltimore to avoid an immediate lynching, Randolph survived repeated interrogations while imprisoned from May 25 until July 4, when a masked mob of white men dragged him from his cell in the Rockville jail, brutally beat him, and hanged him from a tree just outside of town along Route 355. His murderers were never identified or brought to justice for this crime.
https://montgomeryhistory.org/lynchings-in-montgomery-county/lynchings-sidney-randolph/
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This information was gathered with the help of Sarah Hedlund of the Montgomery County Archives.
Further links for reference:
https://montgomeryhistory.org/lynchings-in-montgomery-county/
Performance
April 18th 2021
(raindate: 4/25, 3-4pm)
3 - 3:30 PM (ground performance) , 3:45-4 (rooftop performance,
Performers: Liz Miller (high priestess), Kay Harvey Bonham, Anastasia Johnson, TBA
This performance will cleanse the space of the VisArts location at 155 Gibbs st. in Rockville, MD. It is in close proximity to the actual site of the last lynching listed. This site will experience a 30 min ritual in the closed promenade in front of the building and then the performers will perform a 15 min ritual on the rooftop of VisArts to further cleanse the area, as the people in question lost their lives in midair.
PLAYLIST:
‘Processional’ -Alvin Ailey
‘Swing Low (Sweet Chariot)’ -Etta James
‘Lift ev’ry voice and sing’ -BeBe Winans
‘Lift every voice and sing’ - Wardlaw Brothers
‘Strange Fruit’ Nina Simone
‘A change is gonna come’ - Sam Cooke
‘They don’t care about us’ - Michael Jackson
‘Black or white’ -Michael Jackson
‘This is America’ -Childish Gambino
‘Formation’ - Beyonce
‘Freedom’ - Pharrell Williams
‘Glory’- John Legend
‘Wade in the Water’ -Sweet Honey in the Rock
‘Wade in the Water’ - Alvin Ailey
Sidney Randolph (b.1868-1870, d.1896)
Sidney Randolph, a native of Georgia in his mid-twenties, was lynched in Rockville, Maryland on July 4, 1896 by an officially-unidentified group of white men from Montgomery County. Sidney was accused by a distraught white man for the gruesome murder of the white man's family. Removed to the jail in Baltimore to avoid an immediate lynching, Randolph survived repeated interrogations while imprisoned from May 25 until July 4, when a masked mob of white men dragged him from his cell in the Rockville jail, brutally beat him, and hanged him from a tree just outside of town along Route 355. His murderers were never identified or brought to justice for this crime.
George Peck (c. 1858-1880)
Peck lived in the Poolesville/Beallsville area his entire life, which was about 22 years. In January of 1880, he was accused of attempted assault on a white girl and arrested by the constable. Before he could be transported to Rockville for a trial, a crowd of local men seized him in the night and hanged him from a tree in downtown Poolesville until he died.
pic: approx location of lynching
John Diggs-Dorsey (b.1856-1860, d. 1880)
On the morning of July 25, 1880, while James was out of town, Linnie Tschiffely appeared at a neighbor’s house badly beaten, and accused John Diggs-Dorsey (her servant at the time) of raping her and physically assaulting her the night before. After a two-day manhunt that spread out into Maryland and into Washington, D.C., Diggs-Dorsey was apprehended on July 26 while walking along a public road and brought to the County jail in Rockville. Several hours later, in the early morning hours of July 27, the jail was forced by a lynch mob. Diggs-Dorsey was removed from his cell, marched in leg-irons to a place one mile outside town on Route 28 and hanged from the limb of a tree until dead.
Pic: Montgomery County Jail Building where he was dragged out of to his death in 1880.
UBUNTU- Baltimore, MD- multi-site cleansings (2020)
Lexington Market
Enslaved Africans, upon arrival, they were marched to the largest open-air market, a 1/2 mile away. Formerly privately-owned, Lexington Market was the oldest open-air market in the U.S. where slaves were auctioned off.
Fells Point
Fells Point served as a secondary departure point for slaves which were not sold at auction. They would be paraded to Fell's point to board ships for New Orleans, LA. During the march to fells point, freed blacks would run alongside, hoping to catch a glimpse of their loved ones for the last time.
Railroad
Black Wallstreet
The rapid laying of railroad track westward was a vital component to the expansion of the slave trade. The conditions on hot railroad cars must have been similar to the horrific conditions on slave ships. Former Railway station on campus of Maryland Insitute College of Art.
Black Wallstreet
Black Wallstreet
On superficial grounds, the police raided the neighborhood known as 'Black Wallstreet' in Tulsa, OK on May 31st, 1921. 300 African-Americans were killed and another 6,000 others detained. Baltimore has its own neighborhood known as 'Black Wall Street' on St. Paul st. and 25th.
Confederate Monument
A bronze statue of Roger B. Taney, (5th chief justice of the United States), once sat upon the stone pedestal in Mount Vernon Park. Taney was a slavery defender, widely known for penning the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott case. Governor Hogan had his statue quietly removed after the violent events in Charlottesville, NC (2017).
Freddie Gray
N. Mount Ave and North Ave is the intersection where Freddie Gray was last seen alive. In 2015, he was picked up in a police van and given a 'rough ride' and died in police custody. His death was ruled a homicide. After a long grueling trial, there were no convictions of the 6 officers involved.
