"Everybody's Welcome in Peckerwood City," 2005, Doormat, cardboard, wood doors, steel, tin, bed frame, wire fencing, cloth, wood, towel, enamel, and spray paint Collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. (front)

When I first saw this piece, it stood out because it was so different from the dense thickness of Thornton Dial’s other works. The series of doors are almost playful and are painted in green, blue, and white.  There is even a welcome mat before one of the doors. The work brings to mind the fabled tradition of Southern hospitality, in which no one is made to feel a stranger. Going to the other side of the work I was faced with a tangle of raw wood, wires, nails, boards, and rags. Two strange red and white figures creep amidst the disorder. It is only when I returned to the other side of the work that I saw an ominous pool of red, seemingly oozing from behind the doors.

"Everybody's Welcome in Peckerwood City," 2005, Doormat, cardboard, wood doors, steel, tin, bed frame, wire fencing, cloth, wood, towel, enamel, and spray paint. Collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. (back)

Thornton Dial named this work Everybody’s Welcome in Peckerwood City. The doors evoke a famous scene in civil rights history. On June 11, 1963, Governor George Wallace addressed journalists gathered at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Wallace was a skilled political showman who championed white supremacy and denounced federal interference in state affairs, including enforcement of civil rights laws. In his inaugural address a few months earlier, the governor called Alabama the “Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland” and promised “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” On the June day when two African American students were to register for classes, George Wallace showily denounced the federal court order desegregating the university, delivered a speech denouncing the federal actions, and then stood solemnly in front of the doors to an auditorium. Wallace’s actions immediately became known as the stand at the schoolhouse door. The students ultimately registered for classes and one of them, Vivian Malone, became the first African American graduate of the University of Alabama.

George Wallace at University of Alabama, June 11, 1963.

In her essay in the Hard Truths exhibition catalogue, curator Joanne Cubbs describes the tangled back view of Everyone’s Welcome in Peckerwood City as evoking a horror show. Cubbs words resonated with me because when I read about life in Jim Crow America, “horror show” often seems to be the term which best captures the trials that everyday black people endured. What other term explains a society in which ordinary activities—taking the bus, walking home, or going to Sunday school—could suddenly end in humiliation, torture, rape, or disappearance? In the face of such horror, many whites were complacent or confused, while others endorsed the violent, racist social order. When African Americans organized and protested against injustice, some whites counseled patience, advice which led Martin Luther King, Jr. to write Letter from Birmingham Jail.

African American protestors against George Wallace.

Thornton Dial had his own encounters with horror. He told Joanne Cubbs about an incident which informed his work Joe Louis (1998). When he was a young man living and working in Bessemer, Alabama, his car stalled on a rainy evening. Two policemen, instead of offering assistance, attacked him.  Thornton Dial recalled, “I thought that I had help until they said, ‘You’re under arrest,’ and started to beat me up.  The police are supposed to help you, but they beat me bad. . . I thought they were going to kill me.”

The title, Everybody’s Welcome in Peckerwood City, strikes me as especially acidic. I’ve heard the term “peckerwood” used without irony only a few times in my life and it was usually said by African Americans who were old enough to have been adults in the 1940s or 1950s.  They employed the label contemptuously to describe a white person who despised black people. They had lived through a time when using that word to a white person’s face would have meant risking one’s health or life.  Thornton Dial surely knew the weight of that word when he named his work.

Thornton Dial’s work is too rich to reduce to historical illustrations or examples of how the past influences the present.  But it is evident that Thornton Dial deploys history with the same vision and the same sure and delicate hand that he uses when transforming found objects into art.

"Peace Memorial" in Indianapolis, IN

With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day right around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to look at some MLK-inspired public art in Indianapolis. Martin Luther King Memorial Park in Indy visibly celebrates the battle for civil rights with several interesting works of art. One is a colorful mural on the walls of a building next to the park’s swimming pool, and the other is a two-piece sculpture of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy called “Peace Memorial.” The memorial marks the spot in which Kennedy gave a speech the night MLK was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Here you can listen to an NPR story explaining the historic night, 41 years ago, when presidential candidate Kennedy delivered the news of MLK’s death to shocked residents. His words calmed the city, and it has been noted that as a result, Indianapolis did not see the violence other cities experienced that night. The landmark and great significance of this place is a must-experience.

Martin Luther King Memorial Park, Indianapolis

But even with a bit of searching in Indianapolis, it was difficult to find public art related to the civil rights movement, black history or MLK. Indiana Avenue, Randsom Place, Walker Theatre and Crispus Attucks were several of the places I looked, from the outside. There is a Crispus Attucks Museum which includes “treasures from the first all African American high school in the state of Indiana and highlights its’ history-making African American community that produced such legends as basketball great “The Big O” Oscar Robertson; Grammy award winning super star, Kenny ‘baby face’ Edmonds; jazz great, Freddie Hubbard; and opera sensation, Angela Brown.” There are also plans to build an Indiana Museum of  African American History, to open in 2010 in the White River State Park.

Even Washington, D.C. has yet to fully realize a National Memorial dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. A memorial designed by San Fransisco-based ROMA Design Group is under construction on the north east corner of the Tidal Basin between the Lincoln Memorial (where MLK gave his famous “I have a dream” speech) and Jefferson Memorial. Started in 2006, its completion is scheduled for 2010 and is dependent upon raising $120 million.

The Memorial is conceived as an engaging landscape experience to convey three fundamental and recurring themes throughout Dr. King’s life – democracy, justice, and hope. Natural elements such as the crescent-shaped-stone wall inscribed with excerpts of his sermons, and public addresses will serve as the living testaments of his vision of America. The centerpiece of the Memorial, the “Stone of Hope”, will feature a 30-foot likeness of Dr. King.

Some museums are already taking steps to document and celebrate the first African American President of the U.S. Fulfilling MLK’s dream of equality, Barack Obama will be sworn in as President on Tuesday. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has acquired a poster of Barack Obama by artist Shepard Fairey for its permanent collection. You can read my May 2008 post about Fairey for more on political portraits.

We will be celebrating MLK Day at the IMA on Monday, January 19. Join in, take a moment to realize this landmark celebration, and be sure to comment if you know of anymore Indianapolis MLK-inspired public art we should visit.