BRITT FAMILY NEWS

Submitted by LATANYA N. DILLARD  |  A Memorial to gun violence victims
Latanya's son, Kevin Leis Dillard, Jr., has a memorial block at House 2, currently on display in Boston

LATANYA N. DILLARD

MOTHER OF KEVIN LEWIS DILLARD, JR.

WIFE OF KEVIN LEWIS DILLARD, SR.

DAUGHTER OF CONTAVILLA LONG NICKERSON & LAWRENCE NICKERSON​

GRAND-DAUGHTER OF IDA BRITT LONG & HORACE LONG

<  DESCENDANT OF IDA BRITT LONG  >

September 2024 - MASS Design’s traveling gun violence memorial is now on view in Boston through January 2025.
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The Memorial to gun violence victims is made of keepsakes. The Gun Violence Memorial Project consists of four memorial houses. ​Kevin Lewis Dillard, Jr. is at House 2, and it is on display at MASS Design Group in Boston. ​The Gun Violence Memorial Project launched at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial. The exhibition features four houses built of 700 glass bricks, each house representing the average number of lives taken due to gun violence each week in America. Families who have lost a loved one due to gun violence contributed remembrance objects at in-person collection events. The remembrance objects are placed within a glass brick, displaying the name, year of birth, and year of death of the person being honored. The memorial seeks to preserve individual memories and communicate the magnitude of the issue in built space, and hopes to foster a national healing process that begins with a recognition of the collective loss and its impact on society. The memorial opened at 3 locations in Boston on August 29th, 2024: The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, the gallery at MASS Design Group office, and Boston’s City Hall. The memorial will be on view through the end of January 2025. The installations in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and now Boston are the first steps to recognizing the great need for a national, permanent memorial to gun violence victims.