Marching Into History
by Alys Caviness-Gober
Title
Marching Into History
Artist
Alys Caviness-Gober
Medium
Painting - Mixed Media
Description
First in the series honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this mixed media painting represents the historic Civil Rights events on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which carries U.S. Highway 80 across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. The bridge was part of three historic Civil Rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, the Alabama state capitol. The first march across Pettus Bridge took place on March 7, 1965 a date that became known as Bloody Sunday when 600 civil rights marchers protesting against the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson and denial of voting rights were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. The right side of the canvas changes: all the colors of sky and the bridge merge into an area that has impressions of violence ~ historical examples of racism, prejudice, and discrimination that led people like Dr. King to attempt non-violent protest. Specifically, the painting reflects Indianas violent and discriminatory history, which is not well-represented in our text books. This painting is an attempt to highlight just a few of the events in Indianas past that both link to Dr. Kings life and that are a part of the history that drove Dr. King to promote non-violent protest. Up to the right, the bridge merges into tree branches. From a few of the branches hang three shapes of lynched figures, inspired by a terrible event in Indiana history, the August 7, 1930 lynchings in Marion, IN of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two African-American men. A third African-American man, 16-year old James Cameron, was also lynched, but was cut down before he died. Cameron became a Civil Rights activist throughout the 1950s and 1960s; he marched with Dr. King and later founded Americas Black Holocaust Museum in 1988. In 1937 Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from New York, saw a photograph of the Marion, IN lynching and it inspired his poem "Strange Fruit," which then inspired a song by Billie Holiday. The hanged bodies represent not just those three Indiana men, but the thousands of lynchings that occurred in the United States (over 5,000 recorded; total number = unknown). The lynched figures dangle above a burning cross, symbolizing the domestic terrorism perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan was at its strongest in Indiana in the 1920s but was active during the Civil Rights Era. Below the burning cross is an impression inspired by an historic photograph of Taylor Washington, a high school student , as he is being choked by a policeman (photograph by Danny Lyon, from Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement). The photograph became the cover of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's photo book, The Movement (Simon & Schuster, 1964), with text by Lorrain Hansberry, author of A Raisin In The Sun. In the painting, an impression of the two faces, policeman and protestor, echo the silent struggle of the historic photograph. This type of violence happened throughout the Civil Rights Era, including the first Bloody Sunday march across Pettus Bridge. The rest of the painting is an impression of the bridge and the Civil Rights marchers who chose to walk again Tuesday, March 9, 1965, led by Dr. King. After the violence that had occurred only two days before on Bloody Sunday, their courage cannot be minimized. They knew that they were walking into potential violence and injury, and they walked forward anyway. Dr. King led 2,500 marchers across the bridge, and then he led them all to kneel in prayer. Their non-violent actions stunned the members of law enforcement, who were poised for violent confrontation; they did nothing. Dr. King then chose to lead the people back to Selma, not in retreat but in triumph. The moment of prayer was a turning point in the Civil Rights Era, and when the third march took place later in March, the protestors successfully reached Montgomery. The marchers in the painting are figures cut out of felt material, single color silhouettes representing human diversity, and the various sizes give depth to the painting. The walking figures are all the same shape, meant to symbolize Dr. King. The sameness of the figures represents the idea that Dr. King represented all people, and so the people represent him. Towards the foreground, there are figures kneeling in prayer. So, overall, with the violence depicted to the right of the bridge, the marchers, and the kneeling figures, the impression is of past violence leading to the non-violent moment of prayer on the bridge.
Uploaded
January 21st, 2013
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