Unit Content
My students will look at representations of black lives from various artists during different time periods in the United States from the Antebellum to the modern day. It will be a three-piece unit focusing on slavery in the antebellum period, the 1920s-1930’s during the Harlem Renaissance and the Tulsa Race Massacre, and then current black artists’ portrayals of their people and culture. During this unit students will view art and read excerpts of non-fiction writings by black artists and authors to gain a better understanding of some of the progress and setbacks experienced by black people in America. Students will also learn or improve on three separate art techniques used in the pieces we will be viewing in the unit: wood-engraving, murals, and collage work.
Slavery, the Beginning of an Empire, and Wood Carvings
Colonialism legitimized slavery. Slavery built what is now United States, which can be understood to be both a nation and a continental empire. When the colonists moved in, they didn’t build cities to share with the native inhabitants but moved Indigenous people out to make room for more Europeans to come. When the south was being settled and labor was needed, slavery, which was legal in most of Europe during the 1500’s to 1800’s, became the norm. In the colonies/states it was considered acceptable in the north and “necessary” in the south. This was because of the need for labor on the growing plantations farming tobacco, cotton, rice, and sugar. Cotton took over as the major commercial crop and was 2/3 of the world’s cotton production by the 1860’s.2 The northern colonies originally tended to mimic Europe’s common “society with slaves” while the south plunged into full “slave society” to build and support plantation life.3
As mentioned previously, art created by enslaved people is quite rare. However, art portrayals of the enslaved people are not. It was quite common for rich white slaveholders to have family portraits with an enslaved person in the frame to show off their wealth. Images of enslaved people at work, being sold at auctions, receiving punishments, and life in the living quarters are common, yet rarely created (and even less often preserved) by the enslaved themselves. Not surprising, art depicting those in slavery from the European perspective compared to that of an enslaved person typically shows a vastly different point of view. We will look at two wood engraved prints and read writings related to each, one by a white European, the other comes from the memoir of a former enslaved man.
Eyre Crowe: Slaves Waiting for Sale
Eyre Crowe, a British artist, created a series of sketches after witnessing a slave auction in Virginia. These sketches were later published as wood engravings and used in two oil paintings. One of Eyre Crowe’s oil paintings, Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861, shows a group of enslaved people sitting in a room, waiting patiently for the auction block, an overseer opening a door in the background, and the white seller and buyers haggling over their prices at the door.4 In the oil painting the enslaved people look clean and pretty in white linen aprons and matching dresses like well respected, paid servants. The enslaved people in the image are humanized, real, and relatable due to the realistic style in which they are presented. In the oil painting, one waiting woman smiles happily at her child who is wearing cute little patent leather shoes. Crowe has also added a red flag at the door in the painting. The red flag was used to mark where the enslaved were being sold. Here, he uses the red flag and the touch of red on the enslaved individuals clothing to “link each of the slaves to their ultimate fate”.5 Note: In his wood engraving of the same scene, the enslaved individuals are caricatures of themselves compared to the oil painting. The white men at the door are notably missing from the engraving and the original drawing, as well. Crowe’s images “played an important role in spreading anti-slavery awareness in both Britain and in America”.6 While he did intend on this image to strike the reader with an emotional response, to feel sympathy for these people waiting to be sold, it was a bit of a fair-weather response to abolition compared to the next piece.
Henry Bibb and the Slave Auction
Henry Bibb was an enslaved man who later became an abolitionist and an author. His book, “Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave”, is his personal account of life in slavery and details the abhorrent nature of slavery along with wood engraved prints of enslaved life. These images were not drawn by him but go along with his writings. The artist’s name(s) are not given, that I can find as of this writing. Students will read the preface to Henry Bibb’s 1849 published writings, “A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave”. In this preface Bibb states, “The reader will remember that I make no pretension to literature; for I can truly say, that I have been educated in the school of adversity, whips, and chains.” Though he was not formally educated, he recognized that he was a bit brighter than the average slave of the day and used his quick wit and intelligence to escape repeatedly during his lifetime.7 Henry Bibb’s story is heart wrenching and gut punching, yet he says in the end that he did not include all of the most gruesome descriptions of slavery because it would “not be in good taste” for his book.8
The wood engraving, Slave Auction, 1849, is the last image in Bibb’s booklet. In this image a mother is crying out for mercy at the feet of the slave owner selling off her baby. On the stage behind this woman stands the white auctioneer, dangling her naked baby in the air by one wrist above her, for all the slave buyers to see. All around are white faces, smiling, looking on at the auction or at the smiling man with a whip raised in the air above a group of enslaved people huddled together on the ground. In his memoir, Bibb writes of a time at the auction block that a wife with a baby in her arms was crying and begging to be sold off with her husband, so as not to be separated. She was ultimately ignored and had her baby ripped from her arms so that she could be placed on the block to be sold. There, the Christian enslaved requested to kneel to pray before they were separated, and the request was granted. However, they were driven to their feet by the threat of the whip when they started to pray for mercy from God. Perhaps, what was said by the praying enslaved men and women was a little too stark for the slave owners in the room to bear.9
Despite the fact of having different emotional viewpoints, both images were used in the anti-slavery movement. Crowe was more interested in historical representation. He drew life as it was, what he saw and experienced from the white gentleman’s viewpoint, even though his paintings did seek out more drama and symbolism than really existed. Bibb on the other hand was bought, sold, escaped, captured, and tortured repeatedly throughout his life and wrote about his remembered experiences adding artwork that depicted his words.
Wood engraving
Wood engravings were quite common during this time period. Wood was easily obtained, cheap, and it is also easily engraved (depending on the wood type). Though less forgiving than paint, it can be reproduced many times over in print. Metal etching and engraving was also available, and though much more painstakingly fashioned, the metal plates lasted much longer than wood for printing. With the use of the steam press “visual reportage came to play an increasingly influential role for the middle-class reading public” in the mid 1800’s.10 These images were also extremely important for the story telling for the non-reading public, since many people at the time did not know how to read, which was most often the case with enslaved people.
In this first section, students will also learn more about wood engraving tools and techniques and will learn how to use scratchboard to create a small art piece to start. Other options available in the art room include wood engravings, rubber stamp making, and linoleum carving. I will not get deep into the engraving and carving process here, as art teachers will typically be familiar with the process and other teachers could have students do basic “engravings” on Styrofoam if the unit is used in a non-art classroom.
Harlem and Tulsa: Building Prosperity and Remembrance Murals
The next section will look at the Harlem Renaissance and the Tulsa Race Massacre. In the Northeast during the 1920s black Americans were in the beginning stages of a cultural revival of black art, garnering control over the way black culture was viewed in art, theater, and writing. Meanwhile, black citizens of Tulsa, Oklahoma were building up a prosperous “Black Wall Street” only to then have that prosperity destroyed amid a boiling over of racial tensions and hate in 1921. Students will view a mural from the 1930s Harlem Renaissance and a mural in Tulsa commemorating the ruthless loss of life, lifestyle, home, business, and culture during the Race Massacre, alongside actual images of the Greenwood District where the Race Massacre occurred.
W.E.B. Du Bois and the Harlem Renaissance
Du Bois was a well-educated, well-dressed black man born in 1868, just under three years after slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. In the late 1890’s he was hired to conduct a series of interviews with the University of Pennsylvania in Pittsburg and later for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in Virginia, Alabama, and Georgia. Not surprisingly, the results determined that black people all over the U.S. were still affected by slavery and racism, and that “the black community’s biggest challenges were poverty, crime, lack of education and distrust of those outside the community”.11 In his efforts to bring about racial equality and to advance the black race, DuBois wrote “The Souls of Black Folk” which became a platform for the black arts movement, helped found the NAACP, and is said to have been a forefather of the Harlem Renaissance.
“During the first decades of the 20th century, more than a million Black Americans took part in the Great Migration, fleeing the Deep South in search of jobs and freedom from Jim Crow segregation and racial violence.”12 Harlem became the home of the greatest influx of Black Americans and soon the home of a the most influential and powerful black artistic movement in history, the Harlem Renaissance. “…the Harlem Renaissance instilled in African Americans across the country a new spirit of self-determination and pride, a new social consciousness, and a new commitment to political activism…”13
During this unit we will discuss Du Bois, his role in the black artistic legacy, and read excerpts from “The Souls of Black Folk” along with viewing the Aaron Douglas 1934 mural, Aspects of Negro Life: Song of the Towers. While it is technically an oil painting on canvas, it is considered a mural due to its size and is one of a four-part collection. The image depicts a shadow of a man standing on a cog wheel with arms raised in the air, a saxophone in one hand radiates circles outward, one might assume to be the music he creates. In front of him is a man with a briefcase who looks to be struggling to get up the cog. Behind the saxophone man is the Statue of Liberty in the distance, forever the symbol of success, freedom, and the American dream. Ghostly hands reach out in what seems to be an effort to drag the men down.14
Skip Hill: Tulsa Race Massacre and Building Up from the Ruins
In Oklahoma, prior to 2010, students were not likely to be educated about the Tulsa Race Massacre. It was then called the Tulsa Race Riots and was not taught in most schools. As the 100-year mark of the horrific event approached, so did the openness of remembrance, reflection, and sorrow in the community. By the 1920’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Greenwood District was a thriving neighborhood of black Tulsans with businesses growing and wealth flowing. It was doing so well it was even called “Black Wall Street” by some and recognized nationally. The racial tensions grew with the prosperity of the area until one day, they exploded.
In May of 1921 a young black man was on an elevator with a young white woman. Stories vary; he tripped and touched her (or just tripped getting on and frightened her) or that he tried to talk to her, or he was just “riding an elevator while black”. Regardless, the story spread and got uglier with the telling, spurring police to go arrest the young man. While he was at the courthouse, there were black and white Tulsans protesting outside for quite different reasons. When shots were fired (assumedly by a white protester in the mob outside) the black residents withdrew and went home. However, by morning the Greenwood District lay in ruins after white men raided the area, dragging black residents out of their homes to beat them, looting, burning homes, churches, schools, a library, and multiple businesses, and murdering people in the streets. Bombs of some kind were even dropped from planes, the only time the U.S. has dropped bombs on its own land, its own people. The National Guard was called to step in, and martial law declared. The entire black community was rounded up and housed at the baseball field or fairgrounds for up to a week “for their safety”.
Depending on the source, between 100-300 people died in the massacre that destroyed 35 blocks of Tulsa. The charges against the young black man in the elevator were dropped after the massacre when the young lady recanted her story. However, it isn’t hard to tell that the situation in Tulsa was tense even before that fated elevator ride. The search for unmarked graves in the area is still ongoing and the three survivors, now over 100 years old, are still fighting for justice. There is a link provided in resources for photos. (Warning: some photos include the deceased and could be upsetting for some.)
There are several murals dedicated to Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre. One of which is in the rebuilt Greenwood District (a much smaller area than it originally was). History in the Making, created in 2021 to mark the 100-year anniversary of the massacre, by local Tulsa artist Skip Hill, faces towards the highway on the side of Wanda J’s Restaurant on Greenwood Avenue.15 This mural is a patchwork of images of people from the original Black Wall Street. There are farmers, children, teachers and businessmen. Strong black figures of the time, some with halos of yellow and orange color about their heads look out at the viewer. The mural is based on a children’s book that Hill illustrated, “Opal’s Greenwood Oasis”, historically accurate look at a day in the life of a little girl living in the Greenwood District of Black Wall Street.16 The mural shares the book’s color palette and pride, as well as the visual texture that goes into Hill’s collage work that is included in the next section.
Murals
Mural work can be complicated because you are taking a small image, such as a sketch on paper, and expanding it to a grandiose size on a wall. In this section, students will learn more about methods used to create large art pieces based on smaller images including freehand, grids, doodle grids, and projections. Murals are so common in cities today; all students will likely know what they are and have seen them on public buildings. It is important to note that graffiti art can be considered a mural, however, murals are generally large, complex works with “intricate patterns and themes” and graffiti art is more spontaneous, typically less planned, with a focus “on words and images over formal composition”.17
Modern Day Black Artists and Collage Work: Building on the Past
The concluding section will focus on contemporary black artists and how they present culture and everyday life in the black community through collage.
Skip Hill and Collage
Skip Hill is a Tulsa artist who works in paint and collage. My students will have the opportunity to go to the Philbrook Museum of Art and downtown Tulsa to view Skip’s works in the gallery and in the street and may even get the chance to meet the artist himself. Of his work, Hill says, “The aesthetic of my paintings is drawn from African American folk art, African tribal motifs and contemporary popular culture.”18 Hill has complete collections of artworks based on salons and barber shops. His pieces show the uniqueness and importance of aesthetic and beauty, pride and representation of his culture. He says his art is not political and doesn’t want it to be.
That being said, as a Black man in America there is an expectation that my art speaks to the historic and contemporary pain of the Black experience in this country. There are talented artists better equipped than me to do that. If my art is political at all, as it is with my 'Barbershop Phrenology' series, it is a rebellious act of negating Black pain and negative images, by radically celebrating Black cool, beauty and joy.
-Skip Hill19
We will be looking at Hill’s work, Beauty Shop Aria, made in 2020 and purchased by Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art in 2021. This piece is an “homage to the entrepreneurial spirit of African American women in Greenwood as represented by Mabel Little.”20 Mabel and her husband lost their salon, restaurant and rental properties in Greenwood during the Tulsa Race Massacre.21 The image is of a hairstylist standing beside her salon chair and the customer sitting in it. They are surrounded by items that reflect past and present black hair care products. Mabel wears a Gap shirt, the customer wears Nikes, and a McDonald’s cup sits on the counter. The layering of paint, inks, enamels, and hand-cut and digital images create a colorful and textural image that reflects some of the unique characteristics of black culture. Though there is nothing that can make up for the loss of life, homes, businesses, and wealth in the Tulsa Race Massacres, Hill shows that the people and the culture have survived.
Faith Ringgold and Collage
Faith Ringgold is an American artist who started her artwork and activism work in the 60’s. She is most well known for her quilt collages and the storytelling they entail, although she started out as a painter. She was turned away from one art gallery because her work did not portray her as a black artist. In essence, her art wasn’t “black enough” for the gallery owner. Ringgold was almost 50 before her mother taught her the art of quilting as she was taught by her grandmother Betsy. Ringgold’s great-great grandmother, Susie Shannon, and her great grandmother, Betsy Bingham, were both born into slavery and created quilts for plantation owners.22 They, like Dave the Potter, would have likely done this work to benefit a slave holder rather than themselves, but unlike Dave their work would not likely have been signed. Their quilts could possibly still exist after being handed down through history as a family heirloom, though no one would likely know the specific person that made it and might not even know that it been produced by an enslaved person.
Typically, quilts are considered part of the folk art or craft and textiles genre, but Ringgold has taken her knowledge of quilting and combined it with her knowledge of painting and collage to create art works that are uniquely her own. She “uses fabric to weave together personal stories and histories of African American experience.”23 Her first solo art quilt was titled Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima [1983]. She says it took a year to make and was created as she mourned over the death of her mother.24
Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima is a story quilt about a fictional character, Jemima Blakley, though loosely based on her own aunts. Ringgold’s Aunt Jemima is the matriarch of a large family, and unlike her namesake of pancake fame, this Aunt Jemima is a strong independent businesswoman. “Ringgold exposed and subverted the racist undertones in the way Aunt Jemima is depicted as the mammy stereotype that was often used to portray African American women by giving her a story; she was shown with a family and had hopes and dreams.”25 The image has 9 panes that tell the story of the family in the surrounding panels. In one interview she stated that she was able to take a racist, controversial subject and turn it into a story of pride and heritage.26
Collage
In this section, students will learn about collage work and techniques and will make a small collage piece of their own. Good collage work requires a lot of creativity, reasoning, and problem-solving. Learning how to collage with various techniques can be extremely helpful in other art areas of work, also. Collage work is the layering of materials, using different items to form a new whole. Although magazines and other paper sources are most typical in collage work, artists often use paint, textiles, markers, and many other materials. Collage is sometimes thought of as kitschy, or tacky, children’s work of gluing images from a magazine onto paper. However, when done well, collage is a dynamic and expressive art form. Working with collage teaches students about color, design, texture, dimension, composition, and helps with focus.
Student Work
Students will use one of the techniques they have learned or practiced in this unit to use in creating a final art piece. They will learn and practice techniques after each section. The focus of the final piece will be based on memory and how people overcome adversity and trauma. Students interested in mural work will be able to create murals in the school building.
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