Art
Below are the artworks featured in Oh Freedom!, ordered by date of creation. The artworks are grouped into three periods in civil rights history, which are explained in The Long Struggle for Civil Rights. Click on the titles to learn more about the artworks. You will find art images, looking questions, historical and artistic context, artist biographies, and related materials from the Smithsonian.
Early Civil Rights — Forgotten Movements (1900–1945)
Booker T. Washington, about 1908, and W. E. B. Du Bois, 1918, by Cornelius M. Battey
A.R.C. Canteen, World War I, 1918, by Henry Ossawa Tanner
Evening Attire, 1922, by James VanDerZee
Gamin, 1929, by Augusta Savage
Employment of Negroes in Agriculture, 1934, by Earle Richardson
The Fugitive, 1935, by John Steuart Curry
School's Out, 1936, by Allan Rohan Crite
Mural of Sports, about 1937–1938, by Joseph Rugolo
Make a Wish (Bronx Slave Market, 170th Street, New York), 1938, by Robert McNeill
Marian Anderson #1, about 1939, and Marian Anderson, about 1945, by William H. Johnson
"Crute" Drill, about 1942–1944, by William H. Johnson
John Brown held Harpers Ferry for 12 hours. (No. 20 from the series The Legend of John Brown), 1944, by Jacob Lawrence
The Modern Civil Rights Movement (1945–1968)
Can Fire in the Park, 1946, by Beauford Delaney
Dixie Café, 1948, by Jacob Lawrence
Untitled, 1950, by Charles White
Behold Thy Son, 1956, by David C. Driskell
Walking, 1958, by Charles Henry Alston
Young woman receives her voter registration card, Fayette County, TN, 1960 and "Tent City" family, Fayette County, TN, 1960, both 1960, by Ernest C. Withers
A Beauty Pageant, about 1960, by Henry Clay Anderson
Move On Up a Little Higher, 1961, by Charles White
Evening Rendezvous, 1962, by Norman Lewis
Washington, D.C., USA (March on Washington, 8-28-1963), 1963, by Leonard Freed
Untitled (Birmingham, Alabama) (from the portfolio Ten Works x Ten Painters), 1964, by Andy Warhol
Ali Jumping Rope, 1966, by Gordon Parks
Sanitation Workers assemble in front of Clayborn Temple for a solidarity march, Memphis, TN, March 28, 1968, 1968, by Ernest C. Withers
Beyond 1968 — "Post–Civil Rights?" (1968–2008)
April 4, 1969, by Sam Gilliam
Unite, 1971, by Barbara Jones-Hogu
South Capitol Street at M Street. Washington, D.C., February 1972, 1972 (printed 1982), by Roland L. Freeman
Phillis Wheatley, 1973, by Elizabeth Catlett
Untitled (from the portfolio Equal Employment Opportunity is the Law), 1973, by Ed McGowin
Roots, 1977, by Romare Bearden
Untitled (A lie is not a shelter), 1989, by Lorna Simpson
The Guardian, 1990, by Earlie Hudnall Jr.
Top of the Line (Steel), 1992, by Thornton Dial Sr.
