Finding the Beauty in Others

National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama.

Forest Gump comes to mind as I sit in an empty Montgomery, Alabama airport. The lack of people in the space makes me feel like I’m sitting on a movie set waiting for the main characters to make a dramatic entrance as 1990’s girl band music floats above me. A handful of fellow travelers, four to be exact, are sitting nearby, and I am keenly aware that we are all white. Race and the unsubtle segregation of Whites and Blacks in this birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement are very much on my mind. I have spent the past three days interviewing formerly incarcerated individuals and walking through the Legacy Museum and Memorial. The latter is an experience that should be required for anyone passing through the state. In honor of Juneteenth, I wrote an entry about my visit on the Union Institute and University Museum Studies blog, which you can read about.

Having this time in the South has slowed me down. Provided me time to reflect and consider how we, how I, can get locked into a California bubble. There is so much more nuance to life beyond our everyday lives. Beyond the ways we vote, the religion we adhere to or don’t. Past the levels of education or ways we habitually behave. The more time that I spend in the Midwest and the South, the more I feel inspired to travel throughout our country to gain an understanding of others and of myself.

While in Montgomery, I visited the Rosa Parks Museum. It is incredibly humbling to be the only white individual in a space that is presenting the ugly truth of the Civil Rights movement and the roots of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. These are not things I learned about in school but should have. I did not grow up hearing that we are all equal. Nor was I exposed to diversity and the need for equal justice, having grown up in a highly homogenous community. I am grateful that I can travel, learn, and gain an understanding beyond my childhood. Yet not everyone has that opportunity. So how do we break away from exclusive group thinking? How do we reach across the aisle and learn to understand others?

African Americans boarding an integrated bus following the Supreme Court ruling, a result of the successful 381-day boycott of segregated buses. Photo by Don Cravens. Source: Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

I don’t know the answer. It’s likely different for everyone, yet I believe there is power in using art to educate. To inform. To present a new way of seeing or to crack open a new way of considering. Many artists are working to do this. While visiting the Rosa Parks Museum, I came across one such artist, V.L. Cox. In her exhibit Watchfires, Cox presents work employing authentic and found objects that examine social justice and human rights issues. Cox states that “I chose the name ‘Watchfires’ for this body of work for a reason. Those who have paid the ultimate price to fight against the spread of evil, authoritarianism, and fascism would be shocked at how the values they fought to protect are being purposefully eliminated. Those heroes and sentinels are gone. Now is the time for us to pick up the light that has fallen and take their place – we must be the ‘Watchfires.’”

Another artist featured at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum is the artist Dawn Williams Boyd. Williams creates “cloth paintings” that tells the story of American history as it affects and is affected by its African American citizens. Historical records, political references, and social commentary challenge commonly accepted narratives. The National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellow Carolyn Mazloomi, an incredible artist in her own right, says that “all quilts tell a story based on the intent of the maker, even a patchwork quilt. Social justice quilts are a soft way to talk about difficult subjects, and Dawn is a master storyteller.”

Dawn Boyd Williams. Bad Blood: Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments - Macon County, AL 1932-1972.

Russell Craig. *Three is a Crowd / The Death of Maurice.*

The artist Russell Craig is a self-taught Philadelphia-based artist and co-founder of Right of Return, USA, co-founded with fellow artist Jesse Krimes. The organization is the first national fellowship dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists. After seven years of incarceration for a non-violent drug offense, Craig uses his art to give back to the community. Much of his work focuses on his personal experience in facing the systemic oppression and criminalization of Black men in America, shining light on police brutality, mass incarceration, and other social injustices.

We may not all be able to travel to the South, but we can explore, read, look, and learn. Organizations such as the Equal Justice Initiative, For Freedoms, Art For Justice Fund, and National Underground Railroad Freedom Center offer online exhibits and information. Van Jones, who recently won the Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award, described how Mandela understood the importance of changing the world, but “first, he changed himself.” Mandela, who fought against apartheid in South Africa, “didn’t just believe in the beauty of his own people. He believed in the beauty of his opponents.” Today, on Juneteenth 2022, let us all work to find beauty in the other.

peace,

trw