Morgan-Me'Lyn Grant

"And now we are at war... And I am the enemy."

Michael Burnham

Artist Statement

Bio

Morgan-Me’Lyn Grant is no stranger to leveraging the arts as activism and giving voice to the Black lived experience in theater. An alumnae of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA) Academic Studio’s Musical Theater Program, she sought roles in community-based theater which allowed her to breathe life into characters like Cynthia Wesley in Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963, a contemporary of Harriet Tubman in When the Rattlesnake Sounds, and a young civil rights activist in Spencer Howard’s Freedom Summer.

A two-time Fellow, Morgan-Me’Lyn currently serves as Chair of the Fellows Program. She is a member of the Committee on Blacks in the Performing Arts and has starred in several campus productions. Additionally, she is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., currently serving as President of the organization’s Omicron Chi chapter.

Email: melyngrant@gmail.com

Fun Facts

Aquarius
Black Witch
Black Nerd
Favorite Anime - Sailor Moon

The City Wasn't There: An Explorative Reflection on the Essential Relationships Between Black History, Black Culture, and Arts Education in New Orleans

Project Description

“The City Wasn’t There” is a shared ritual reflection that searches through the elements of memory for the final stages in a cycle that has caused avoidable trauma for thousands of Black youth across the city of New Orleans. Using the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts as a case study, this work explores the important role of the inherently Black New Orleans cultural traditions and histories in arts education for Black New Orleans youth. This work demands that NOCCA’s administrative structures be held accountable for the historic systematic deemphasis in Black educators, Black students, and Black New Orleans cultural creators and practices. The research reclaims negromancy as a protective ritual to advocate for the incorporation of the inherently Black artistic cultural traditions of New Orleans as well as the white western artistic techniques in NOCCA’s curriculums.