Artist Yao Kahlil Newkirk is making sure Trayvon Martin's story isn't forgotten

Charlie Specht

Apr 23, 2023 

Before America knew the name of Tyre Nichols, before it learned about Michael Brown in Ferguson and before it witnessed the murder of George Floyd, this country first heard of Trayvon Martin. 

So many unarmed Black men have been killed in the last decade that some have forgotten the story of the 17-year-old who was gunned down in Florida while wearing a black hoodie. 

Yao Kahlil Newkirk wants to change that – and he is going to great lengths to make it happen. 

The noted Black artist and former artistic director of Buffalo's Paul Robeson Theatre on Sunday donned a black hoodie that he will wear every day for the next year. 

To prove his commitment before a few dozen friends and supporters, Newkirk had his hairstylist sew his dark locks into the hoodie. He won't remove it for 365 days – through the heat of summer, the cold of winter and whatever he experiences in between. 

"I'm going to live in it," Newkirk said. "I'm going to bathe in it. It's a physical representation of all those things that we don't get to escape." 

The cost of being Black in America – from microaggressions he experiences to visceral racism he tries to overcome – is something that Newkirk says he and many others must face repeatedly each day. 

"There's so much that has happened over the last several years," Newkirk said. "Even in Buffalo ... it's compiled trauma. So now, it's something I have to think about, every day." Newkirk will also limit himself to one meal per day – what he calls his "last meal," just as a bag of Skittles and an Arizona fruit drink was Martin's final meal before George Zimmerman gunned him down in 2012. 

"Trayvon didn't know it was going to be his last meal," Newkirk said. 

Newkirk's performance art is titled "Separation Anxiety," and it is dedicated in honor of "all those who have been lynched both present and past." "What I believe is happening now is still lynching," Newkirk said. "You might be using a gun or a fist, but it's still lynching." 

The performance, which debuted Sunday at the University at Buffalo North Campus, was timed for the date – April 23 – that Zimmerman was released on bail 11 years earlier, before he was acquitted of second-degree murder. 

Newkirk will write in a leather-bound journal about his experiences wearing the hoodie and will take videos and post them daily to social media at 7:16 p.m. – the exact time that Martin was shot. Martin may be dead, Newkirk said, but the daily trauma of being Black in America has not receded. He recalled his 17-year-old son going to school where he was one of the only Black kids in attendance. "I made a rule in the house of, 'Don't wear any black hoodies to school,' " Newkirk said. That led him to reflect on why a simple article of clothing, combined with the racist impulses or implicit biases of others, can be a danger to young Black men going about their daily lives. 

"If I put a suit on, does it erase my Blackness enough?" he asked. 

Linda Barr, an artist who worked with Newkirk when he was the artistic director at the Paul Robeson Theatre, said Newkirk's performances help people consider societal injustices and larger concepts, "as opposed to the mayhem we deal with in life." 

She said she was particularly impressed with the fact that Newkirk's latest project will last an entire year. 

"So much of his soul is invested in it because it's an everyday endeavor," Barr said. 

Beyond galvanizing the Black community to stand up to injustice, Newkirk hopes the exhibit will spark conversation with white people who have never had to consider how a fashion choice might affect whether they live or die. 

"Maybe I'm not just the angry Black person," Newkirk A march to truly make Black lives matter – to Blacks said. "I hope it changes the way people engage, interact with and perceive those like me." 

Newkirk held the event at the UB Student Union, which is located on Mary Talbert Way. The famous orator, suffragist and anti-lynching activist is Newkirk's great-great aunt, he said. 

He reflected on Talbert's legacy and pondered how things might be different for his descendants when they are generations removed from his exhibit. 

"We've come a long way, but we're still having a similar conversation that they were having 100 years ago," Newkirk said. "I hope this is not the same conversation my kids and my grandkids will be having." 

By Charlie Specht 

Buffalo News Political Reporter