287g: 1900 style

Watch this sad excerpt from Marko William's Documentary "Banished" on You Tube.

Symbol of "Strange Fruit" blooms again

Jacob Lawrence, plate 15

What is going on in America? Why have so many people chosen to tear open old wounds that should be long forgotten. Why are nooses appearing all over the country? (Click here to see updated map)Maybe it's that too much forgetting has occurred, the tragedy of those events have not been taught to newer generations. Leonard Pitts' A History of Rope essay drives home this point with full on horror.

Though I never saw a lynching, I have heard stories through my family of lynching in which people brought children and picnic baskets. Luckily artists like Jacob Lawrence, Joe Jones, Samuel Brown, Robert Colescott, Larry Rivers, Melvin Edwards, and others have in the past engaged their art to speak out against lynching and racial terrorism. Dora Apel's book "Imagery of Lynching" does a good job of covering these artists' efforts, though not enough of the images are in color- maybe a cost thing. Rather than documenting photographs, artists have the ability to document human tragedy while giving full breadth to human dignity and hope, ex: Plat 15 above. There used to be a bumper sticker that read "Fear no Art." It should be read "Fear = no Art." It's time to put art back into our educational system, before we loose all our humanity.

What artists among us today will speak out? To be continued......

Postcards from Home: Confronting Racism

From Post Cards from Home Series

courtesy of art, Susan Harbage Page.

Once, when I was a child my mother and I stumbled upon a gathering of the Klan burning a cross. All I remember was the worried look on my mother's face, the golden flickering light, and cars parked all along the road. This was in the early 1970's in rural North Carolina. Looking at Susan Harbage Page's photos of self-made Klan Hoods brings back those memories and must unfortunately compete in my mind with the recent spat of hangman nooses that have re-spread like a virus out of Jena. They have appeared in high schools in my community as copy cats and were mis-used at a local college in protest. These symbols are powerful and often over arch their intended meaning when used by good intentioned persons. When asked about this Susan responded that she has only positive feed back from viewers of her Post Cards from Home series. The title of the series reminds me of the awful photos of Southern lynchings I have seen made into postcards. Susan has super imposed onto the pattern of the hood contemporary versions of racism, from Wal-mart bags to professor's tweed, to Oriental designs. I believe Susan is pointing head on at an ever living problem by pointing at the varied masks of racism that all of us wear. Susan's Post Cards from Home Series can be seen at Sumter County Gallery of Art in South Carolina.