April Parker Becomes Managing Director of Elsewhere
Press Release + History
9/27/21

April Parker is a cultural worker and architect of Black spaces utilizing public scholarship, radical librarianship, performance art, and direct action (read full bio here).

On Friday, August 6th, Parker officially became Elsewhere’s Managing Director after unanimous board approval of the creation of the new role. This marks the latest development in Parker’s decade-long relationship with the organization, which had deepened over the past year.

Parker moved to Greensboro in 2010 from New Jersey and began volunteering with Elsewhere a year later while completing her MA in Library and Information Sciences at University of North Carolina Greensboro. Initially, she volunteered and helped out wherever needed. Soon after, she worked with a group of people to catalog the museum’s extensive book collection. In 2011, she co-founded Queer People of Color Collective (QPOCC), who did joint programming and actions with Elsewhere, supported the museum’s Queerlab and residency programs, and utilized Elsewhere’s downtown space and its resources. Parker advocated to ensure admission to the museum free for all QPOCC members. In 2013, Parker contributed to Elsewhere’s “I Don’t Do Boxes” (IDDB) queer youth writing journal, put on an exhibition at the public library, the following year joined the IDDB editorial team. That year, Parker co-founded Greensboro’s Gate City Chapter of Black Lives Matter, utilizing the museum as its home base. She was critical in pushing the organization to be more outspoken and active in racial justice efforts.

In 2018, April stepped back from public leadership in local activism. She took a two-year self-imposed hiatus in order to recover from recent uprisings that resisted statewide injustices and to reflect on her role in the movement after becoming a flashpoint of criticism. This process of reflection allowed her to reset and regroup, preparing her to adapt her leadership using the lessons learned.

The death of George Floyd in 2020, after those of Ahmaud Aubrey and Brianna Taylor, gave her no choice but to return to public work. In June, she organized The Mourning Drive, a COVID-safe funerary procession through downtown Greensboro leading to the burial marker of the five murdered in the Greensboro Massacre. By officially being a funerary procession, it circumvented having any police presence. Through Morning Drive and subsequent actions, Parker demonstrated what that time of reflection and healing had done for her. It provided time to process her experiences and to come back with tremendous creativity and innovation. In May of 2020, Parker and District 1 Councilwoman Sharon Hightower helped to get the Greensboro City Council to unanimously pass a resolution to make Juneteenth a city holiday, a month ahead of President Biden’s naming Juneteenth a national holiday.

By this time Parker had already put her name in for a newly created role at Elsewhere through the Creative Catalyst Fellowship. The fellowship comes through University of North Carolina School of the Arts Thomas S.Kenan Institute for the Arts Creative Catalyst program, with full funding provided to Elsewhere by The Tremaine Foundation. The intention for the role was to activate artist Heather Hart’s The Porch Project: Black Lunch Tables, created in 2015 as part of the NEA funded South Elm Projects. The tiered picnic table was meant to be a place to gather to have critical conversations and had been underutilized since the initial programming. It was clear, however, that the timing of the Creative Catalyst role with the summer uprisings could take another direction. With the position offered and accepted in July, April stated that the work as Creative Catalyst will follow the “heart palpitations that reflect the times and movement.”

As protestors poured into the streets during the Summer of 20201, downtown businesses protected their storefronts with wooden boards, later to become murals. Parker in this moment saw how white businesses used art as a means to protect themselves against Black rage. It further illuminated the absence of Black-owned institutions. Parker used the Porch Project as a means to support Black sanctuaries, historically Black owned downtown adjacent standing structures like the Historic Magnolia House and Beloved Community Center. The photo essay, in conjunction with the Black August Porch Music Series raised $1700 for each organization respectively.

Noting that in previous movement work that there was often a lack of documentation critical for maintaining histories, she ensured that every act of protest was well documented, even using the staging of photographs as protest itself (see photographs of Mourning Drive). As protestors poured into the streets during the Summer of 2020, Parker noted that white businesses downtown (including Elsewhere) used art to protect themselves from Black rage, creating murals on the boards protecting their storefronts, which only further illuminated the absence of Black-owned institutions. She responded with The Porch Project, a photo essay of Black women on the porch of The Historic Magnolia House ahead of organizing the Black August Porch Music Series benefit concert. Parker used the Porch Project as a means to support critically important Black sanctuaries: historically Black-owned downtown-adjacent standing structures like the Historic Magnolia House and Beloved Community Center. These efforts raised $1,700 for each organization respectively.

Her next action was to enlist allies to block traffic on Elm St. downtown to occupy the street and photograph Black women of all ages on the Black Lives Matter street mural. She later posed her own body on the toppled confederate monument base in the Greensboro cemetery in a suite of photos called My Body is a Confederate Monument.

The resulting documentation formed a new body of work titled “Unveiling Monuments,” which was featured in a pop-up exhibit at Greensboro Project Space and through its own website unveilingmonuments.com. Parker has given artist talks and lectures about the work through at Ohio State University and University of Georgia, as well as through Elsewhere. This Summer, April has returned to the series with images of people dressed all in red physically marking the history of redlining in Greensboro.

Parker’s work has been a vital part of keeping Elsewhere active and visible, especially while the museum was closed for 15 months due to COVID. She had, in fact, honored Heather Hart’s project by interpreting the porch as a kind of Black institution and engaging hundreds of people through her actions and new body of work.

As the Summer of 2021 drew to a close, Parker shifted her attention, in part, to the inner workings of Elsewhere. She honored the call to action of the North Carolina Black Artists for Liberation by asking how the organization needed to “take care of home” by fully committing to being an anti-racist organization in order to improve how it operates in the Greensboro community. Parker prompted critical dialogue about how the organization functioned historically in community and its identity as a historically white-led organization. April called on equity consultant Dolores Chandler of Build from the Heart. Dolores was instrumental in reviewing board development processes, organizational bylaws, hiring practices, and Elsewhere’s racial equity plan.

By this time, she and new Executive Director, Matthew Giddings, had developed what they describe as a co-mentoring relationship, one that is both supportive and productively challenging. Their deep study of the organization and the impending end of the Creative Catalyst position lead them to co-create a new role called the Arts-Administrator-In-Residence (AAIR). AAIR was created as a way to create equity in the arts with an alternative entree to the field of arts administration. It does so by both valuing a broad range of significant lived and professional experiences, as well as recognizing that particular skills and abilities are needed to challenge norms in the organization and the field. Parker’s experience with the organization and background as a radical librarian, activist, and parent all are seen as highly valuable and transferable to the field. This inaugural position was made possible by a program grant from the VF Foundation that was specifically proposed to foster Black leadership throughout the organization.

On February 24th, 2021, at 4PM, a ceremony took place in Elsewhere’s garden to celebrate Parker’s “Unveiling Monument” series and her transition from Creative Catalyst to AAIR (The ceremony was filmed and subtitled by Elsewhere’s Program Manager, Jess Hoyle). It was led by artist Karen Archia (Creative Director of Public Art Practice, former owner of People’s Perk) who had been inspired by April’s work. After a few words, Archia led a libation ceremony to honor her and April’s ancestors. Parker was given flowers, followed by two original artworks by Archia. Elsewhere Executive Director, Matthew Giddings, had reached out to Archia to create the artworks based on the African principle of “Sankofa,” which Parker references often in her life and practices. Serendipitously, Archia had only recently been moved by seeing the photo of Parker seated powerfully on the confederate monument base on the cover of Triad City Beat. Archia wrote in an accompanying narrative that she read at the ceremony -- here is an excerpt: ”I had a deep, visceral reaction when I saw her photo for the cover story in Triad City Beat for ‘Unveiling Monuments’: an instant, undeniable feeling of admiration from a soon-to-be elder for her younger sibling’s ability to proclaim the many truths she embodied. I felt seen and heard, and my spirit was lifted. There was a fullness in my response: April held my trauma and my joys, my fears and my resiliency, and stood as a potent, stately and gentle expression of the beauty of Black womxnhood.” Karen Archia’s artworks were included in her show at the CVA and now adorn the walls of Parker’s new condo in downtown Greensboro. Witnesses to the ceremony included Matthew Giddings and his children, Golden (age 7) and Juliana (age 4); Jess Hoyle, Elsewhere Programs Manager; Ivan Cutler, Carolina Peacemaker photographer; and Rae Red and Christian Lee, Elsewhere “Shelter Elsewhere” Fellows and resident artists.

From January through June, as the AAIR, Parker was a part of shaping short-term organizational strategy around reopening the museum and building back up the staff team, and long-term strategy around racial equity, community development, and programs.

Perhaps most significantly, Parker used her extensive organizing experience to gather a cohort of regional Black organizing artists to develop a new entity annual convening called the Black Creatives Revival (BCR) (see news article and event program). The effort drew inspiration from the Black Artists Retreat initiated by Theaster Gates and Eliza Myrie in Chicago in 2013, as well as the current efforts of the North Carolina Black Artists for Liberation call to state-wide arts organizations. Its first weekend gatherings that took place from 4/30-5/2, a hybrid of in-person and virtual events, celebrated Black artistic expression and fostered radical and visionary solutions through a series of critical conversations. The group will continue to host smaller convenings throughout the year in anticipation of its second annual revival in May of 2022. The group envisions having BCR Fellows across the state that organize and advocate for Black and other POC artists in their communities and region.

In June, the Juneteenth GSO Committee, that Parker is a lead organizer of, put on three days of events around Junteenth to not only celebrate the holiday, but to also bring a focus on Black businesses and entrepreneurship. Parker personally organized a Black Food Truck Fest in LeBauer Park that drew out hundreds of people (see article).

Elsewhere’s current Board President, Travis Laughlin, states that “[t]he Board is honored to have April Parker join the team at Elsewhere. April is a change leader within the city of Greensboro, and Elsewhere has been the beneficiary of her work and vision even prior to her work as a Creative Catalyst Fellow in 2020. The impact of April’s work is already so prevalent with such accomplishments as the reactivation of the Heather Hart’s Porch Project and the creation of the Black Creatives Revival. April’s vision, commitment to community, and deep work in anti-racism are of immense value and importance to Elsewhere and the impact of her work in collaboration with the Elsewhere community is sure to resonate beyond the museum’s walls.”

Parker was a media specialist and radical librarian in the Greensboro Public Schools for the past 6 years until taking the Managing Director position at Elsewhere. She had become a first time homeowner in 2020 and then sent her daughter off to start her freshman year at A&T this Fall. Now facing an empty nest and coming on board at Elsewhere full-time, she is both excited and tentative about all the changes. Parker continues to be active on the board of the Greensboro Public Library.

Now at the helm of an 18 year old organization with national reach, Parker has transformed her radical leadership, stepping into her identity as an artist and as an arts leader (see this recently produced GSO Vibes video where Parker speaks about Elsewhere’s present and future, and how it helped her claim her identity as an artist.) Parker chooses to work with Elsewhere because she feels that, while there are a lot of spaces that present history, Elsewhere is rare in that it actually presents the future.

Additional info - past articles and press releases: