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Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.Morgan Overton looks to artists of Pittsburgh’s past as she seeks to mentor and empower present-day talent within the city’s Black community.
“We have August Wilsons and Teenie Harrises in our community today and must do a better job of elevating them,” said Overton (A&S ’16, SOCWK ’20G).
“I want to be the person I wish I had as a Pitt student.”
The David C. Frederick Honors College artist-in-residence began cultivating her craft as an undergraduate, developing what has become a signature part of her style: intersecting civic aspirations and artistic gifts, often calling upon vibrant watercolors to convey various forms of Black existence and resistance.
Throughout this time, she also volunteered to help college students across the city register to vote, worked as an Obama Fellow and organized various campus activations. These experiences with civic engagement assured Overton “that we were all unified and gave me a feeling of purpose,” she said. “At the same time, I wished for a place on campus to exercise civics and art.”
With the Building a Beloved Community event, she’s making that wish a reality. Part of Pitt Homecoming festivities, leaders from the University, Pittsburgh and beyond will discuss nonviolent approaches to activism that offer attendees strategies for fostering social change in their day-to-day environments.
The free, public workshop is Sept. 21, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. in the William Pitt Union Assembly Room. It’s a collaboration by Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems, the Frederick Honors College and the Alliance for Humanitarian Initiatives, Nonviolence and Spiritual Advancement, or AHINSA, which translates to “nonviolence” in Sankrit. Register to attend.
Along with the panel discussion — where Overton will explore ways art enables purpose, community building and activism — participants will engage in hands-on activities like painting and drawing.
“Art has galvanized an understanding of broader issues,” Overton said. “Attendees will create work, inspired by what inspires them in our community and our democracy. It all intrinsically aligns.”
The event also aligns with Overton’s residency theme, Democracy in Focus, and with Pitt’s designation of the 2024-25 academic year as the second Year of Discourse and Dialogue. During this time, the University continues to center civil conversation, exploring and championing the enriching benefits that differing views bring to the campus community.
“We’re in an interesting political climate, and what worked for me as a millennial on campus may or may not work for Gen Z,” Overton said. “This residency is a form of giving back to youth, but I'm also learning directly from the students.”
It’s a consequential time for students to consider and express their values, she said, and art is an ideal medium for people to discover their motivations and beliefs.
“It’s one way to wrap your mind around huge, complex concepts, even if you don’t have the language for it,” Overton said. “I want people to walk away with better understanding of where they stand, to be bold and ask questions, and to have human connection, which society needs right now.”
The event taking place during Pitt Homecoming is a nod to how traditions can and should change with the times.
“You can defer to the past, but there should always be room for innovation to refine your legacy,” she said. “One of Pitt’s new phrases is ‘It’s possible at Pitt,’ right? I would love for our campus to be known as a safe place, where antiracism, peace and justice are ideated, and where there’s examples of students and community coming together for more wisdom-sharing.”
And she thinks Pitt is more than capable of setting that tone.
“At age 15, Pitt was my dream school,” she recalled. “It was a top research university, known for grand things like the polio vaccine and I wanted to study psychology. As a fan of history, I discovered that Pitt admitted Black students at the top of the 20th century. To know a school in my backyard had been bold, was cool. Let’s now be bold and grand to think about how we can systemically shift society. People are hungry for this.”
Photography courtesy of Overton