When Che Anderson was growing up in the projects of New York City, his mother ran a tight but loving ship.
Her two boys were not allowed to watch TV until their homework was done, not allowed outside after dark and they were encouraged to get involved in extracurricular activities.
Lysa Adams worked as a prison guard at Rikers Island, and she did not want the sons she was raising alone to suffer the fate of the incarcerated young men she saw at work.
From the time he was 4 or 5 years old, Anderson recalls his mother hammering home the daily message that became the family mantra: “In life you have choices. Be a leader and not a follower.”
He took those words to heart, even sharing them with student leaders in a recent talk at Holy Cross.
“If I had a tattoo, which I don’t, that’s probably the one I’d get,” he says with a laugh, during a break from his job as a staff assistant to the city manager in Worcester.
In that role, the 2011 Holy Cross graduate coordinates special events, including initiatives intended to spark the cultural economy of the city. Though he is quick to stress that such projects are a team effort, Anderson has emerged as the point man for public art in Worcester, especially after leading the initiative to bring the mural project Pow! Wow! to the city last year.
Under Anderson’s direction, Worcester became the first city on the East Coast to host a Pow! Wow! festival, which has been held in Hawaii, Japan and Taiwan, among other places. These festivals partner local and international artists with communities to enrich and beautify neighborhoods through art. Late last year, Worcester Magazine named Anderson its 2016 Person of the Year, calling him “pretty much the face of the local effort to bring the festival to fruition.”
Now, Anderson’s energy and expertise are being tapped to bring public art elsewhere, including Lynn, Massachusetts, which, like Worcester, is a former industrial city that sees art as one way to boost revitalization. He’s working with Joe Mulligan ’87, a transformative development fellow for MassDevelopment, the state’s economic development and finance arm.
“The hope is that we might be able to tap into his experience, connections and resources to export some of those best practices, and apply them to Lynn and other places,” says Mulligan, a third generation Crusader.