A community-engaged play
By Lisa Biggs
Joseph Walker Williams Center | 2017
After/Life is a living history play that tells the story of women and girls who participated in the 1967 Detroit rebellion. The production was part of a series of commemorative events in July 2017 in the neighborhood where the uprising began – at Rosa Parks Boulevard and Clairmount.
The performance featured actors Johnathan Finch, Brandon A. Wright, Kristy Allen, Nick Stockwell, Kyle Sammy, Coda Boyce, Deborah Chenault Green, Shavon McSwine, and Shannon McGlone
Read about the process on Howlround: After/Life Tells the Untold Stories of the Detroit '67 Rebellion
Watch interview with Lisa Biggs and poet Deborah Chenault Green on PBS: American Black Journal
“As long as our stories about the ‘67 Detroit Rebellion overlook the knowledge and experiences of women and girls, they will continue to circulate half-truths and false representations of the city, the causes of the uprising, and the world Detroiters inhabit today." — Lisa Biggs, "The Untold Stories of Women in the 1967 Detroit Rebellion and its Aftermath," The Conversation
“Hopscotch, tag, hide and go get it,
Baseball in the alley, nowhere to hit it...
Hot dogs, Kool-Aid, potato chips
Block parties, swingin’, dancin’ in the streets to
’My Girl,’ ‘ Heatwave,’ just boppin’ to the beat...
Ms. Harrison’s beauty shop,
Henry’s pig feet in a jar
Playin’ tag, hot tamale man, catch me if you can
Music heard all night long from the Calumet Bar
The innocence and beauty of 12th Street
Before the riot. Before the community died.” — 12th Street (Pre-1967) by Deborah Chenault Green, featured in AFTER/LIFE