By: Lindsay Sebastian
The summer of 2020 had been the moment society witnessed with their own eyes the injustice of police brutality faced by the Black community, which would ignite civil unrest and protests that are still ongoing. Even when the summer of 2020 had come and gone, it marked the start of transforming the age-old discussion of what could be done to end the injustice into protests for immediate changes within the police departments. When speaking with Nalla Roberts, one of the twenty featured artists in this year’s senior exhibition “Living in Color” on VSU’s Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery webpage, as well as looking through her works featured within the exhibition, it was made clear that the fight for justice and equality was not and would not be over for her. Growing up between the northern states of Maryland and Virginia and the southern state of Georgia, Roberts was taught to love herself as a Black woman. In my interview with Roberts, she stated, “I make work inspired by Black people because Black people are legally discriminated against for a large part of their identity and self-care”.