Series of Brooklyn Billboards Put Racial Inequity on Display

By Jamilah King, Colorlines

Billboards are everywhere in New York City. They’re on subway trains and in stations, and on top of and inside taxis.

But few, if any, have been anything like a series of anonymous billboards that have popped up on bus shelters in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. They’re not selling anything but a delcaration: that racism still exists.

That’s also the name of the appropriately titled campaign. At least half a dozen billboard sites have sprung up around the neighborhood since August, with each month dedicated to highlighting racial disparities that impact black people in America. So far, the billboards have touched on topics ranging from the entertainment industry, education, fast food, smoking, policing, and black wealth. Each month’s billboard is also accompanied by a detailed post on Tumblr that provides background information, news articles, studies, charts, and statistics to back up each claim.

A brief statement on the Tumblr page says, in part, that “RISE is a proejct designed to illuminate some of the ways in which racism operates in this country.” But who’s behind the project remains a mystery.

Read more about this poster campaign here.

See more posters here and read their background information by clicking on each poster.

Read more Breaking News here.