CA☆ FORUM ON PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY Blood in the Rust Belt Mourning and Memorialization in the Context of Community Violence by Robert A. Rubinstein, Sandra D. Lane, Lookman Mojeed, Shaundel Sanchez, Elise Catania, Timothy Jennings-Bey, Arnett Haygood-El, and Edward Mitchell Jr. This paper examines the use by those living in impoverished neighborhoods of color in Syracuse, NY, of artifacts and rituals of memorialization in response to intense ongoing violence. This work is part of a longitudinal, community- university action anthropology collaboration on trauma due to neighborhood violence. This Rust Belt city of 145,000 res- idents had 30 murders in 2016, the highest murder rate in New York State and one of the highest nationwide. Since at least 2009, the majority of Syracuse’s homicides resulted from neighborhood violence in which adolescent and young adult members from competing turf areas carry out ongoing feuds. Neighbors, coworkers, family members, and friends of mur- der victims face trauma, including emotional and somatic symptoms. There is little public recognition of the deep pain and grief experienced by community members. In response, community memorialization takes place through a process of acknowledging key events with symbols, folk art, martyrdom, and language. These artifacts express shared values, even when those values are contrary to and in resistance to values of the larger society. We compare these practices to those seen in civil conflict areas to suggest that such memorialization may unfortunately fuel ongoing violence through processes of social contagion. In late 2015, a 15-year-old high school sophomore was killed in a drive-by shooting as he was sitting on a porch in the early evening. Around his neck, he wore the laminated photographs of his three good friends who had all previously been murdered (House 2015). The young man literally carried his memories of his friends with him, honoring their lives. The shooting prompted the lockdown of the Syracuse University campus a mile and a half away (Pucci 2015), yet to our knowledge, neither this murder victim nor his deceased friends have been commemorated in their own school; there have been no schol- arships, no plaques, no statues erected in their memory, and no minute of silence. In the comments section in the local news- paper, many of the writers blamed the decedent and his parents for his death, while a community member noted, “If a kid dies in a car crash, runs into a tree, drunk driving in another school district, they’ll stop, offer counseling, right, to anyone who that needs, and then only resume curriculum after that.” In this ar- ticle, we examine the memorialization of friends, family, and compatriots in the context of profound poverty and ongoing neighborhood violence. We see the social practices that we de- scribe in this article as preserving and extending the social identities of the deceased (Unruh 1983; Walter 2015) and as strategies through which people who often find themselves mar- ginalized can shape the social life of their communities to give Robert A. Rubinstein is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Professor of International Relations at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University(209Maxwell Hall, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA [rar@syr .edu]). Sandra D. Lane is Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence in the Department of Public Health and Professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University (444 F White Hall, Falk College, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA). Lookman Mojeed is an independent scholar (133 Green Street, Valley Stream, New York 11580, USA). Shaundel Sanchez is a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at Syracuse University (209 Maxwell Hall, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA). Elise Catania is an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester (7000 East Genesee Street, Building C, Fayetteville, New York 13066, USA). Timothy Jennings-Bey is Chief Executive Officer of the Street Addiction Institute (601 East Genesee Street, Fayetteville, New York 13244, USA). Arnett Haygood-El is formerly Community Liaison Specialist at the Street Addiction Institute (601 East Genesee Street, Fayetteville, New York 13244, USA). Edward Mitchell Jr. is Com- munity Liaison Specialist at the Street Addiction Institute (601 East Genesee Street, Fayetteville, New York 13244, USA). Electronically pub- lished 13 VII 18. q 2018 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2018/5904-0005$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/698956 Current Anthropology Volume 59, Number 4, August 2018 439