Pratt MFA Writing Students Organize Fundraiser For Akai Gurley Family

If anyone knows about the power of the spoken word, it’s students pursuing their masters degree in writing. And if anyone knows how that power can be harnessed for social and community activism, it’s Pratt Institute students.

Keeping up that tradition are students and faculty from the Pratt Institute MFA in Writing program, who have organized a benefit reading in support of the family of Akai Gurley, the unarmed 28-year-old father who was shot and killed by a rookie police officer — who was just indicted on charges of second-degree manslaughter — upon entering a stairwell of the Louis Pink Houses in East New York on November 20.

“Using literary/poetry protest in how we respond to the atrocities” is important, explained Mahogany L. Browne, one of the student organizers. “Also, it helps the spirit of our community. We find that literature is a very large part of healing.”

The Akai Gurley Benefit Reading will take place this Sunday, February 15 from 7-11pm at The Spectrum (59 Montrose Avenue) in Williamsburg. Suggested donation amounts are between $5-$25 per person, although no one will be turned away. And since the venue was donated to the cause, all proceeds go to the Gurley family, which includes his widow Kimberly Ballinger, his two-year-old daughter Akaila, and her five-year-old sister Kamiya.

“The family has been very much a part of the planning process, bringing several people to perform and share,” said Browne. “We’re trying to continue to be a socially active community, helping to support families affected by police violence.”

Performers who will be on-hand include Pamela Sneed, Falu, Stacy Szymaszek, Jive Poetic, and more speakers and entertainers from New York and across the world.

Being Pratt students has made the whole organizing experience easier, added Browne. “We have an amazing faculty who are super supportive and highly aware of the need not just for the theory of social activism in writing, but the practice,” she explained. “They’re very aware of the role that artists play as social activists. so that’s been inspiring, knowing that you don’t have to go through red tape to explain real life. . . The fight is a learning body in itself.”