Activist Print: Paradise Gray: The Disappearing Black Culture in Pittsburgh Series

In this series, one pair of images reveals the transformation of an outdoor facility adjacent to a North Side public school—a cracked overgrown basketball court gives way to a manicured green baseball field. In the second diptych, before and after images show the removal of a Negro League tribute from Pittsburgh’s baseball stadium—statues of players from the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords are replaced by banners and trash receptacles.

Paradise Gray is a community organizer, author, artist, producer, hip-hop artist, historian, and chief curator of The Universal Hip Hop Museum, New York. He was manager and promoter for the hip-hop club “The Latin Quarter” in New York City, a teacher of the 1Hood Media Academy, professor of hip-hop at Monroe College, New York, and a founding member of 1Hood, the Coalition Against Violence, and the Alliance for Police Accountability.