The Guardians, created by Baltimore artist Whitney Frazier and photographer Kirby Griffin, is a photo, documentary, and storytelling project that includes photo portraits, large-scale banners and digital archives that celebrate unrecognized Black female leaders across Baltimore City neighborhoods. This project provides a platform for women who spend their lives fighting for a better, more equitable Baltimore.

Speaker 1 (00:00): Okay. We're back here with Ms. Audrey Carter in her office at Zion Baptist Church and all of our community. And we just had a beautiful photoshoot, but we wanted to capture some more of her story. In particular, Ms. Audrey, sounds like there was a tragic event with your son. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened?

Audrey Carter (00:30): About almost three years now, my son was shot and killed on June 9th, 2018 up in the Darley Park area on off... The name of the street is Germania, but it's like near Cliftview and Darley Avenue, intersecting off a half road in that area. And so he was killed. His name is Dwayne Cheeks and he was 38 years old, and my one and only son. So I just said, just in knowing the area, and I just started handing out flyers, handing out door knockers with his picture on it and you know, what happened to him, to say there was a reward, that kind of thing. And that same area is where also I used to live as well. Or my mom lived right around the corner. So then, it became a bitter kind of sweet situation because I would have to go visit my mom but at the same time drive past the area where he was shot and killed. I'm going to say probably about two weeks after he was killed, we had like a Memorial up there. And so I put pictures around the lamppost of the area. So I go up there probably every couple of weeks or so, kind of see how the pictures look and things I can add in or change them out, put balloons or something like that. Yeah. Or definitely on his birthday. So I just...

Speaker 1 (02:21): Do you know what happened?

Audrey Carter (02:23): I know they said it was a large group of people that was out in the area at the time. It was like late in the morning, like two o'clock, or three o'clock ,or something like that in the morning, but for whatever... It was summer night, I guess. And then, they said a lot of people were out. And they said that they were shooting dice or something, but I couldn't... You know? They can't say confirming whether he was doing it, but I do know they said that people were out there shooting dice or something. So I guess this one the large crowd. But for some reason, this is from the detectives, that they said, they think he was part of the shooting the dice, but then he went into a store, and then when he came out, something else happened. And then, he went into the store again or something like that, and then he was shot. You know? But they said he was shot like running away or something. So I don't know if it was something happened or whatever.

Asset ID: 2021.09.01.b

Find a complete transcription on the Peale's website.

Photo by Kirby Griffin