ashley is the Dreamer of blackyard. ashley is also a theatre teacher of 24 years, an aunty, a sister, mama to two wonderful humans, a singer, a person who loves to be in their imagination, a dancer at night when everyone goes to bed, a partner, and so so much more. 

 

In 2016, ashley decided her relationship with children in a Boston charter school was not only ageist, but also deeply ageist and anti Black. ashley started her teaching career in Columbia, SC and knew from day one, the relationship between adults and children were highly skewed. ashley became a theatre teacher because she never wanted to lose using her imagination. She never imaged working in schools, she'd lose her humanity. After 16 years of teaching theatre, ashley wanted to invest in being radically transformed to show up for Black children her own humanity. ashley knew doing this work of radicalized transformation towards Liberation and Abolition would be challenging and didn't want to go at it alone. so she sought space to do the work of decolonizing self. when a regular space didn't exist, ashley created an arts space for community. ashley has always believed in her ancestors and thought, what's a good name for folks hanging out and allowing art to be a place of healing? blackyard. ashley's home is the southeast of this stolen land, specifically Charleston, SC. ashley spent years playing, pretending, imagining, bbqing in her, her grandparents, and her best friends backyards. backyard=blackyard. a place of joy, resistance, rest, AND often SAFETY for so many Black families in the southeast. ashley began to invite community over to her backyard to create and dismantle white supremacy culture from within and in community the way of art making. They sang, held open mic, wrote letters to senators, created collage, and had very honest, direct, and messy conversations. There was a lot of failure internally but ashley was determined. Black children had given her so much, she herself, a Black child once, had given her so much. Determined to continue the work, ashley started organizing with BLM Cambridge, it was there, she was gathered up and held by so many, often much younger adults and children, who held ashley through the realizations of the harm she had caused but it was the best learning possible. During her time with BLM Cambridge, it came to light ashley held a lot of knowledge about the schooling systems and its inadequacies, especially the injustices Black children faced day in and day out. ashley started to attend meetings with families to support them navigating a system that was quite emotional and unnecessarily complicated.  ashley started to also become much more active with the larger Cambridge community and began partnering with organizations on protests and community events. ashley also had the highest honor of working with the Black Student Union at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the local public high school. ashley is a current co advisor of the BSU and acknowledges the injustices Black children and faculty face, and thank them for their continuous efforts to make school a place for ALL children.