The COVID-19 Memorial Project


THE COVID-19 MEMORIAL PROJECT  The pandemic has presented challenges that at times have felt insurmountable, none larger than the incomprehensible loss of life. These beloved members of our community deserve to be recognized and remembered.   The COVID-19 Memorial Project is a memorial and series of programming at The Outrage dedicated to helping our community rebuild while holding space to collectively grieve and move forward.  We seek to support our community in the following ways:ART GALLERY  Our community space has transformed into a gallery, with photos and stories of loved ones lost to COVID-19 on display.  Visitors will have access to local Mutual Aid Networks to support however they can.EVENTS We’re hosting events in our community space to discuss the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 and acknowledge the mental health impact.   For these events, we will invite + pay for a local restaurant, from alternating wards, to prepare a delicious meal. Additionally, we will invite + pay local artists to perform and match the moment.LONG TERM MUTUAL AID & OUTREACH Outside of scheduled events, the space will be open + available for Mutual Aid Networks + grassroots orgs throughout the city to use as they need — to pack meals, to collect goods to circulate, and more.   Events will incorporate community outreach and education components, e.g. vaccine awareness.The doors to our community space in DC have officially reopened as a physical memorial. It will support and connect each ward in DC, with recognition that each ward has suffered its own unique challenges this past year. This is how we’re doing it:HIGHLIGHTING SOCIAL & RACIAL JUSTICE ISSUES  The COVID-19 pandemic has brought social and racial injustice and inequity to the forefront of public health. It has highlighted that healthy equity is still not a reality as COVID-19 has unequally affected many racial and ethnic minority groups, putting them more at risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. Our displays aim to bring this information to the forefront of the conversation.ADDRESSING THE MENTAL HEALTH IMPACT  The pandemic has not only affected physical health but mental health as well. Reported suicide has increased, and we grieve for them as well. We want to honor the people that have lost their lives due to the pandemic, not only to the virus. It is imperative that we acknowledge the mental toll. In addition to holding space for us to collectively grieve, we will hold space for individuals to share their thoughts, feelings, and more about how the pandemic impacts them.LONG-TERM MUTUAL AID AND OUTREACH  COVID-19 demonstrates that only by looking out for each other - acting as if the health of one is the health of all - will we actually be able to lessen the amount of sickness and death, not to mention the emotional weight. Such cooperation has to be about building on the fact that we’re all interconnected and impacted by COVID-19 and we’re all in this together. That’s why we’re centering mutual aid groups and grassroots organizations throughout the city to also use the space as they need - to pack meals, to collect goods, and more.Do you have someone in mind who lost a loved one due to COVID-19? We’re taking nominations to explore how we can best honor their memory as part of the COVID-19 Memorial Project. FILL OUT THE FORM HERE.HELP SUPPORT OUR MISSION - 100% of proceeds from the memorial enamel pins will benefit The COVID-19 Memorial Project. Shop now. WE WILL REBUILD FOR THEM.

Dive Deeper + Act Now

Immediate Actions To Take:

  • Join and support local mutual aid organizations — DC folks can start here
  • Call your Reps to pass the Build Back Better Act

Organizations to Support + Follow:

Educate Yourself + Keep Showing Up:

  • Articles —
    • Cooperatives Cooperate to Protect Home Health Aides with Masks — Karen Kahn via Fifty by Fifty
    • Coronavirus: How These Disabled Activists Are Taking Matters Into Their Own (Sanitized) Hands — Matthew Green via KQED
    • COVID-19 response: What about us? — Robert Barton via Medium
    • Demands from Grassroots Organizers Concerning COVID-19 — Kelly Hayes via Transformative Spaces
    • Feeling Powerless About Coronavirus? Join a Mutual Aid Network. — Charlie Warzel via NYTimes
    • Grief Belongs in Social Movements. Can We Embrace It? — Malkia Devich-Cyril via In These Times
    • How To Ask If Everything is OK When It's Clearly Not — Anna Goldfarb via NYTimes
    • How to Share Space Again — T. Cole Rachel via departures
    • How we relate: patterns of extractive capitalism in our personal relationships, and what skin and mitochondria can teach us about interdependence and liberations — Abigail Rose Clarke via Medium
    • In 1918 and 2020, race colors America’s response to epidemics — Soraya Nadia McDonald via Andscape
    • Let This Radicalize You: A COVID Memorial Mixtape — Kelly Hayes via Transformative Spaces
    • No New Normal: Who Will We Be After This Nightmare is Over? — Kim Kelly via Bitch Media
    • Omicron Is Thriving Off America’s Obsession With Work — Emily L. Hauser via DAME
    • Poems for People Who Aren’t Ready To Move On — Kelly Hayes via Transformative Spaces
    • ‘Self-Care’ Isn’t the Fix for Late-Pandemic Malaise — Jamil Zaki via The Atlantic
    • Stop Blaming Black People for Dying of the Coronavirus — Ibram X. Kendi via The Atlantic
    • The Coronavirus Is Here Forever. This Is How We Live With It. — Sarah Zhang via The Atlantic
    • 'The Impossible Has Already Happened': What Coronavirus Can Teach Us About Hope — Rebecca Solnit via The Guardian
    • The Mutual Aid Mourning and Healing Project — Kelly Hayes via Transformative Spaces
    • The Octavia Butler Novel for Our Times — Lovia Gyarkye via The Atlantic
    • The Public Body: How capitalism made the world sick. — Sarah Jones via The Nation
    • There Is Nothing Normal about One Million People Dead from COVID — Steven W. Thrasher via Scientific American
    • Think This Pandemic is Bad? We Have Another Crisis Coming — Rhiana Gunn-Wright via NYTimes
    • Unmasked: Impacts of Pandemic Policing — Pascal Emmer, Woods Ervin, Derecka Purnell, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Tiffany Wang via Community Resource Hub
    • We’re Entering the Control Phase of the Pandemic — Katherine J. Wu via The Atlantic
    • What if we … Don’t return to School as Usual  by National Equity Project — Hugh Vasquez via Medium
    • Where Do We Go From Here? Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor & Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor — Haymarket Books
    • You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence — Mia Mingus via Leaving Evidence
  • Videos —
    • COVID-19, Decarceration, and Abolition: An Evening with Ruth Wilson Gilmore — YouTube
    • COVID Is Creating a Deadly Mental Health Crisis in America — VICE News
    • Health Autonomy Beyond the Pandemic: Webinar — Grassroots Economic Organizing
    • Remaking Schools in the Time of Coronavirus — YouTube
    • The New Authoritarians and Covid-19 — YouTube
    • The Path Forward: Pandemic Policing or Protection — YouTube
    • “The Sisterhood.” Why Filipino nurses have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. — The Experiment
    • Voices from the Front Line: Health Care Workers and the Fight Against Covid — YouTube

NOTE: Our focus areas are informed by community input. If there is an issue you'd like to see included or would like to share input, please email us at community@the-outrage.com with questions, comments, or concerns on our 2022 focus areas. We'd love to hear from you. 

This is an incomplete and growing list. Last updated March 9, 2022.