Mark Menjívar, Lindsay Reckson, and Rickey Cummings, 190 + 1
Founders Green, Haverford College // March 1, 2023
Lindsay presents me with the score—191 dots. Mark explains how this system of notation is a citation to Harvey Irvin’s words that open the exhibit: “The beginning of something can punctuate time like a dot.” The next day, on the phone, Lindsay will explain her reading of
“dot” as puncturing time and punctuating time, but to my eyes, on this cold overcast day that
itself marks the start of the month that marks the start of spring, they look like tiny clocks, or
phases of the moon.
We gather at the bottom of the steps, and I remember the class I taught on queer
kinship here, how it was warmer then. “In 1863,” notes Lindsay in the giant white program we
hold in our hands, “formerly enslaved people used plantation bells […] to spread the news
of emancipation. [. . .] Today we mark the closing of Currently [. . .] by ringing the Founders
Bell 191 times: once for each of the 190 people thus far exonerated from death row […] and
once more as […] an appeal to abolitionist futures.” I close my eyes.
As Mark begins to sound the bell—taking brass hammer to brass drum—we hear
sirens in the distance. I think “police”: how profoundly apt for this carceral song. But then I think
no: an ambulance, announcing its flightpath. Its urgency on cue and on point. (Later, I will learn
that this is a duet with very real stakes: from his 6x9 cell on death row in Livingston, Texas,
Rickey is also tapping 190 + 1 times—taking spoon to cup.) I imagine Mark counting in the
tower which allows me to stop counting in my head—to trust the numbers will add up. This takes
time. 10 minutes and 28 seconds. And then: a rest, before the last resounding note. The final
peal is quiet, cautious, clear. The sirens have stopped. In their wake, birdsong.
JIP//Juneteenth 2023//@291words
tinyurl.com/lovingdescription