Clarissa Uprooted Exhibit
Experience intergenerational stories of the changing landscape and impact of Rochester’s historic Clarissa Street community through visual and interactive media.
The online exhibit is a resource for anyone – educators, businesses, community groups, students, youth – with interest in understanding the joy and progress of Black Rochester and racial and economic dynamics present in cities throughout the US.
COMING SOON: Learning Activities to accompany the exhibit!
The physical Clarissa Uprooted exhibit is down for now while Clarissa Street Legacy committee seeks its permanent home.
Please contact ClarissaUprooted@teenempowerment.org if you have ideas or support to offer. Donations help support continued access to this vital community resource!
The Clarissa Uprooted Initiative
Clarissa Uprooted’s goal is to inspire and empower young people and adults in the Greater Rochester community to look to the past to understand our present so that we can identify actions that will help heal our future. This Sankofa experience (“go back and fetch it”) has been created by elders who lived through the uprooting of the Clarissa Street community and Teen Empowerment Youth History Ambassadors who are living with the consequences today.
Clarissa Uprooted Documentary
“In order for us to play a role in changing Rochester, we need to learn where it started.” –Briana Williams, TE Youth History Ambassador.
Teen Empowerment Youth History Ambassadors are proud to share their documentary, Clarissa Uprooted: Youth and Elders Uncover the Story of Black Rochester, now available for screening.
Clarissa Uprooted depicts the Third Ward as a microcosm of Rochester’s—and many northern US cities’—history. From neighborhood camaraderie, international jazz music, and thriving black-owned businesses, to redlining, urban renewal, and other racist policies. The film features some of the elders who lived this history and the youth who are living with the consequences today.
The 25-minute Clarissa Uprooted documentary short has won four national media and film fest awards.
