Infant Mortality, Southern Cemeteries, and the Statistical Imagination
Graves of Declared Futures is a DocuPhotoMentary, a term I use to describe my post-documentary visual art practice that resists the colonial orientation of traditional documentation. This methodology is grounded in praxis and guided by a framework I developed called AI3: Archival Intelligence, Ancestral Intelligence, and Augmented Interrogation. It merges critical theory and lived experiences through a cyclical process of reflection and action, shaped by the complexities of archival memory, social conditions, and cultural continuity. Developed through my sustained research and creative practice, DocuPhotoMentary is not simply an alternative form of visual storytelling. It is a framework for critically engaging with the intersections of memory, representation, and historical omission. This project is autobiographical, emerging directly from my personal experiences.
I am from Jackson County, Texas, and this work centers on infant graves in Black cemeteries throughout the region, including Garcitas Cemetery, Bacon-Town Cemetery, Chase Cemetery, Ganado Community Cemetery, Hines Cemetery, Kerr Cemetery, Mt. Olive Cemetery, Sayles Cemetery, and Washington Cemetery. These are not sites selected for visual effect or rarity. They are the resting places of my relatives and extended kin. These cemeteries are not passive spaces of mourning. They are active landscapes of memory, care, and intergenerational knowledge. Each photograph in this series is made from a position within the community, not as an observer or outsider. My role is shaped by familial relations and ethical accountability, not aesthetic detachment.
The project also critiques the statistical foundation of racial exclusion in healthcare, specifically the 1896 publication Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro by Frederick L. Hoffman, a statistician for Prudential Insurance. Hoffman’s pseudoscientific claims framed Black life as biologically deficient and provided a statistical rationale for denying Black policyholders access to insurance and care. Though discredited, this publication helped shape public health policy and contributed to structural disparities that persist today.
In 2021, Texas reported an average infant mortality rate of 5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, in Jackson County, the rate was significantly higher at 26.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, making it the second highest in the state. Racial disparities were similarly pronounced. Non-Hispanic Black infants in Texas died at a rate of 9.4 per 1,000 live births, compared to 4.5 for non-Hispanic white infants and 4.9 for Hispanic infants. These data, spanning 2012 to 2021, were reported by the Texas Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Texas Health Data)
The work reflects the complexity of memory. These cemeteries are not endpoints. They are declarations of presence, care, and continuity carried forward by Black families.
