After Silver Lake residents fashioned a memorial to unarmed Black American citizens killed by police last month, volunteers have augmented their efforts. The two-mile memorial – created with multi-colored fabric woven into chain-link fence spelling out names of about 200 individuals – now includes laminated biographies, further detailing lives and how they were cut short.
Local organizers Eli Caplan and Micah Woods arrived at the memorialized names via in-depth research, using the online databases “The Counted,” compiled by The Guardian and Mapping Police Violence.
![Joseph](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
“Say Their Names: Silver Lake Memorial” held a candlelight vigil in early June as neighbors and visitors gathered near the reservoir, a neighborhood fixture. The reservoir was chosen as a place to memorialize the individuals partly because of its popularity with joggers, bicyclists and others who regularly circle the location.
![Frank](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/frank-rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
“The vast majority” of local participants have been “privileged white people, that was the reality,” said Eli Caplan in a Los Angeles Times story about the project. “It’s so important to bring the names of Black people into a predominantly white space. But this isn’t a Silver Lake problem. It’s a U.S. problem, it’s an everywhere problem.”
The Silver Lake History Collective recently conducted an interview with co-organizers Caplan and Woods:
The Silver Lake Reservoirs Conservancy has supported the project, communicating with the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, City Council members, and the DWP.
In a statement, the Conservancy wrote, “The DWP has stated that they recognize ‘this is a time of reflection, movement and discussion to raise awareness about the racial injustices that exist,’ and have no plans to disturb the signs.”
![Name fence](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/watler-1rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
There is no timeline as to how long the memorial will stay up, but “when the time is appropriate, we plan to work with organizers to remove the names in a respectful and reflective way,” the Conservancy wrote.
Below are more of the new laminated biographies placed next to the names:
![Darrien](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/darrien-rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
![Layleen](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/layleen-rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
![Felix](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/felix-rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
![Anthony](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/anthony-rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
![take action](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sign-rdanielfoster-culturalweekly.jpg)
Top, feature photo: Cheryl Revkin