Artist Statement

“How to Throw Away a Black Body” is a real-life example of how the justice system throws Black people away for profit, instead of investing in the healing of the American people.

Kalief Browder's story shows everything that is wrong with American justice. He refused to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit, and spent over 1,000 days in Rikers Island awaiting trial. Kalief’s case was eventually dismissed for lack of evidence, but the trauma of his incarceration, including over two years in solitary confinement, led him to take his own life after he was free. This exhibition called me to speak his story through my own art medium.

Biography

Leroy D. Bean is an author, poet, and co-founder of the Underdog Academy and Baldwin Cafe Bookstore in Dayton, Ohio. For the last five years, he has taught an original creative writing workshop for elementary-age children to adults for the purpose of healing, encouraging emotional intelligence, developing one's writing process and exercising the creative muscle. Follow Leroy on Instagram @leroydbean.