Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize-winning poet and Professor of Creative Writing Patricia Smith wants to draw our attention to the numbers:
- In 2022, more than 271,000 women were reported missing, and nearly 98,000 of those were Black women and girls.
- Black women make up only 7% of the US population, yet account for 18% of those reported missing.
Seeing a huge disparity in how the cases of Black missing girls and women are treated by media and law enforcement, Smith determined to highlight the issue by using the arts.
In spring 2023, Smith dove deep alongside Executive Director of JustMedia and poet Mahogany Browne, choreographer and Lecturer in Dance Davalois Fearon, and fourteen students in the Princeton Atelier course “How to Find a Missing Black Woman” to research, discuss and develop an original piece combining spoken word, song, choreography and video. The interdisciplinary course, crosslisted with the Department of African American Studies and the Program in Gender & Sexuality Studies, helped all of the collaborators develop a voice — for some, for the first time; for others, in a new way.
“Some of the ways that Black women go missing in our everyday lives is because no one cares to listen to us. And so I think having a space where we are listened to, our voices are being heard, and we’re actively contributing to help bring this issue to light was really important for me.”
— Alyssa Marie Brigham ’26
Speaking about the multimedia production, Smith notes “I just want to turn everyone into a witness. I want them to remember how much we’re not seeing, the stories that aren’t being heard.”
