LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER:

Hi, I’m Latoya Ruby Frazier, and this is my series. “Flint is Family, Pt. II” It’s my continued and ongoing body of work covering the Flint, Michigan water crisis. There are approximately 8,000 children. Who are permanently impacted by being exposed to this lead contamination. In part two, I follow Shay Cobb and her daughter Zion to Mississippi. Shay Cobb is an artist, a poet, and an activist and a single mom in Flint, Michigan, who happens to be a school bus driver. 

SHAY COBB:

My name is Shay Cobb. My dad was born in Mississippi. My dad grew up on the land and he loved it. And he spent all his summers there. Even after their family migrated to Chicago and into Flint. 

FRAZIER:

The first image is a photograph of Zion holding a family photograph of her mother, Shay, at the same age as her, taking a sip from the freshwater spring on their land in Mississippi. 

COBB:

It was very cold and it was sweet. It went, it tastes like silk. 

FRAZIER:

Mr. Doug Smiley sent his daughter, Shay, a photograph summoning her home during the water crisis. 

COBB: He said, “This water won’t kill you, come home.” And so I did. I made a decision to go back home. 

FRAZIER: The second image is going to be Shay kneeling down with Zion to teach her how to take a sip from the freshwater spring. 

COBB: It’s been like twenty years between the photos, so there’s been plenty of rain and erosion. So the spring had been covered up, so we had to dig it out. And that wasn’t easy because it’s wet [laughs], but it was, you know, it was still there and she was able to drink from it. And that is special to be able to give her what my dad has given me. I like that picture of me and my dad and Zion standing over where we carved out our place in life, our new place in life. 

FRAZIER: I’d like to draw your attention to the largest silver gelatin print on the wall towards the right. It’s a vertical landscape of Mr. Smiley, Zion, and Shay riding their Tennessee walking horses. 

COBB: It’s the bad ass photo of our family, my dad being the original cowboy, myself, the millennial cowgirl, and my daughter, the New Age Power Ranger. Don’t mess with us, [laughs] like we hold our own here. I love it though. It’s very strong. It’s got a soft power to it, if you will. You don’t really see black people on horses too, too often, not horses that they raised and bred for themselves. 

FRAZIER: What I’m excited about to show to the audience and share with San Francisco is this unexpected narrative, this hidden narrative that we never really see in mainstream media. Mr. Smiley’s family has always owned this land. They were not enslaved in Mississippi on this land. And I don’t think that exists in our school system, in our history books, where we’re being taught like black families were free in the South. And this is what that looks like. 

COBB: I met Latoya a few years ago, and I let her know that if she was coming, looking for the downtrodden, “not going to make it” kind of people, that she was looking at the wrong people, because that’s not who we are. We are resilient, we are ambitious, and we go hard for who we love and what we love and we love each other — Flint is family.