We all must work to bridge the divides that racial categories impose
Joan Ferrante founded the MCRC Project in 2016. MCRC offers a new lens to think about race by telling the story of how we were broken apart into racial categories.
For the past decade, MCRC has collaborated with artists to illustrate exactly how that breaking apart was carried out and its impact on society today. It showcases this lens through film, dance performances, art exhibitions, workshops, and other community presentations.
MCRC has presented at the Aronoff Center, Woodford Theatre, Cincinnati Fringe Festival, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, NKU’s Fine Arts Center, Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement, Xavier University Art Gallery, SOS Art Cincinnati, Race & the City, Women Writing for (a) Change, Leadership Cincinnati USA and at schools, places of worship, and other community organizations. MCRC has also been featured in Cincinnati Magazine and the book Four Cincinnatis and Other Essays.
The book What Is Your Race? is informed by MCRC.
The Mourning the Creation of Racial Categories Project (MCRC)
Why Mourn?
MCRC is dedicated to mourning the dividing of people into racial categories. Mourning does not mean being crippled by sadness. Mourning allows us to acknowledge the wound and the weight that people in each category still carry around today. What Is Your Race? offers a way to begin.
“Deposits of unfinished grief reside in more American hearts than I ever imagined. Until these pockets are opened and their contents aired openly, they block unimagined amounts of human growth and potential.”
— Robert Kavanaugh
The Categories of Black and White is on KET (PBS).
Films by MCRC
Other films by MCRC - click for more info
John Mercer Langston: Two years in Cincinnati (1840-1842)