‘brownsville song’ shows the ripple effect of tragedy
Grief and Trauma are Anything but Tedious
Kimber Lee set for herself in brownsville song: b-side for tray the task of rounding out for the public the “other story” of someone like Tray Franklin. In the play Tray is 18 and working on his scholarship essay. In real life, Franklin was a black college student and winning amateur boxer who was one of three youth shot by gang members in Brownsville, Brooklyn in 2012. His friends survived, he did not.
Listen carefully to the opening soliloquy by Lena, Tray’s grandmother (Denise Burse) as she speaks apparently to the “press” or non-Brownsville society in general—”Tray was not …” she insists and repeats. Burse cries by the end of her long speech.
What is the b-side?