Tubman

[bon moun <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

AgitProp News

June 17, 2000

Special Issue: Harriet Tubman: Armed and Dangerous

In This Issue:

1. Harriet Tubman: Armed and Dangerous
2. I Will Not Disarm Harriet Tubman
3. A Rare and Authentic Dialogue
4. What are "The Dreams of Harriet Tubman"
5. Abolitionist's Rifle Engulfs N.J. Artist in Fray
6. Nothing Will Stop this Historic Endeavor
7. Statement by Baltimore Clayworks
8. Statement by Mike Alewitz

______________________________________


1. Harriet Tubman: Armed and Dangerous

USA Today

Wednesday, June 7, 2000

Baltimore - A 25-foot-high ceramic mural of a musket-toting
Harriet Tubman leading slaves to liberation on the
Underground Railroad has upset the group that had planned to
display it. Associated Black Charities Inc. says the piece
could be construed as racist and violent. The group asked
artist Mike Alewitz to replace the musket with a staff, but
he refused. Tubman, a Maryland native, is the subject of
five Alewitz murals to be installed throughout the state
this summer.

_________________________________________


2. I Will Not Disarm Harriet Tubman

Mural of armed Tubman stirs protest
Artist won't change piece for black charity

Dispute: Officials of Associated Black Charities Inc., the
organization for which the mural is intended, have asked the
artist to replace Harriet Tubman's musket with a staff.

By Jamie Stiehm, Sun Staff

An artist refused yesterday to alter his government-funded
mural as he prepared to meet with members of Associated
Black Charities Inc., who balked at putting it on their
building because they believe it paints a racially loaded
portrait of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
Strong emotions were apparent last night over the
25-foot-high ceramic Mural planned for display this month at
Associated's headquarters at Cathedral And Chase streets.
The work portrays Tubman with a musket, leading slaves to
freedom through a symbolic, parting Red Sea. The images of
whites in the work - they are being tossed into the sea from
either a slave ship or a factory - and Tubman handling a
musket set people off, even before a gathering to discuss
the mural last night at the McKim Center, a former Quaker
meeting house on Aisquith Street.

The mural creates a powerful image, but one that could be
construed as racist and condoning violence, say charity
directors. It is not something to display on an outside wall
at a time when guns are too often linked with violence in
the black community, charity officials say.

Associated leaders have urged artist Mike Alewitz - chosen
in a national competition sponsored jointly by the White
House Millennium Council and the National Endowment for the
Arts - to substitute a peaceful staff for the musket.

Alewitz likens this to censorship: "I will not disarm
Harriet Tubman. I won't take [the musket] out of her hands,"
he said in a telephone interview before the meeting.

The 25-by-123-foot mural is designed to be in public view.
It has raised questions about historical truth vs.
contemporary perceptions, issues that separate whites and
blacks. Some tried to bridge that gulf at last night's
meeting.

The community coordinator of the statewide Harriet Tubman
mural project defended the artist's choice. "[Tubman] did
not lead a revolution with a feather," said Blaise DePaolo.

A Maryland native who led slaves to freedom, Tubman is the
subject of Five murals to be installed throughout the state
this summer, one in her birthplace, Cambridge.

Through a national Millennial Treasures campaign launched by
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Baltimore Clayworks won a $25,000
grant to develop the Harriet Tubman motif. The Mount
Washington ceramics center chose Alewitz, who Lives in New
Jersey, from a national pool of hundreds of artists. He
designed All five murals.

The others are set for display at Magnolia Middle School in
Harford County, a park in Hyattsville in Prince George's
County and the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.

If the Associated refuses to take the mural as Alewitz
conceived it, Baltimore Clayworks will find another site for
it in the city, said Deborah Bedwell, the executive
director.

Originally published on Jun 6 2000

________________________________________


3. A Rare and Authentic Dialogue

(The first sentence of this letter, where the writer
identifies herself as an African-American, was deleted by
the Baltimore Sun.)

After reading Jamie Stiehm's account of the June 5 community
meeting concerning the mural "The Dreams of Harriet Tubman,"
I have to wonder if the reporter and I attended the same
meeting ("Mural of armed Tubman stirs protest," June 6).

The meeting provided a forum for the artist, Mike Alewitz,
and representatives from Baltimore Clayworks and the
Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation to explain the scope of the
statewide public art project and for citizens, community
leaders and national experts on Harriet Tubman to discuss
their feelings about the work.

While there was a great deal of discussion about the image
of the rifle In Tubman's hand, it was neither initiated nor
fueled by representatives of Associated Black Charities Inc.
(ABC).

Ms. Stiehm mentioned that the artist is white, but failed to
mention that a white male raised the greatest objections to
the gun in the mural. She neglected to acknowledge that a
number of attendees, black and white, found the rendering to
be passive compared with the savage violence endured by the
enslaved.

In short, Ms. Stiehm portrayed the meeting as divided along
racial lines. It certainly was not.

Ms. Stiehm also states that ABC leaders "balked" at having a
mural that "paints a racially loaded portrait of Harriet
Tubman and the Underground Railroad" on their wall and
claimed that "an armed depiction of the Freedom fighter is
inappropriate for the building" and that some people have
Urged the artist "to substitute a peaceful staff for the
musket." None of this Is true.

In fact, ABC leaders pointed out emphatically that they had
no desire to censor the art.

Donna Jones Stanley, ABC's executive director, stated that
people who Are opposed to the rifle's presence are angry and
more vocal than those who Are not, and that she did not want
to place the agency in the position of defending a mural.
She, and members of her staff, attended the meeting to hear
the comments of members of the communities her agency
serves.

Also, for the record, Mr. Alewitz was not "chosen in a
national Competition sponsored jointly by the White House
Millennium Council and the National Endowment for the Arts."
And, Clayworks did not win a "$25,000 grant to develop the
Harriet Tubman motif through a national Millennial Treasures
program."

Baltimore Clayworks selected Mr. Alewitz from a pool of
artists after it received an award in recognition of its
commitment to community arts programs.

It is impossible to engage in honest and open discourse
about the life and times of Harriet Tubman without
discussing the issues of race, slavery and racism.

The images in the mural provoked thought, commentary and
questions, and resulted in a rare and authentic dialogue.

The artist's depiction of Ms. Tubman's dream touches on
issues and Events that many wish to marginalize or ignore.
The discussion served to open Eyes and minds and hearts, as
good art always does.

It's unfortunate that Ms. Stiehm twisted the spirit of the
debate and misconstrued it as a racially divided meeting.

Jannette J. Witmyer Baltimore The writer is a member of the
board of Baltimore Clayworks.

Originally published on Jun 14 2000

__________________________________________


4. What are "The Dreams of Harriet Tubman"

The Dreams of Harriet Tubman

The importance of Harriet Tubman's life lies not in the
past, but in the future.

At a time when African-Americans were kept as chattel, when
even the abolitionist forces were riddled with the racism
and bigotry of the time, Harriet Tubman and thousands of
anti-slavery activists organized an effective liberation
struggle which divided and conquered the forces of reaction.
Their will to triumph, in the face of tremendous adversity,
is an inspiration for those who struggle for social justice
today.

The Dreams of Harriet Tubman will give visual expression to
this great movement, one of the seminal points in American
and world history. Dreams will be a necklace of murals
painted across Maryland. They will form one unified work.

Moses

The murals will be anchored by a dramatic image on a major
wall in the city of Baltimore. This mural will depict
Harriet Tubman a she was known: Moses. Harriet will be shown
parting the seas of reaction, as she did in her life. Her
staff is the musket that she carried. The children of Israel
are the slave armies who resisted their bondage and joined
the union ranks to defeat the south.

Among this army will march the freedom fighters of the slave
era, like Sojourner Truth and Robert Gould. But the army
will also include those of more recent times: Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu Jamal and others.  Drowning in
the tide will be Pharoahs tribe: the slavers, the KKK, Nazis
backward politicians and the other forces of reaction.

Harriet's massive skirts will be a quilt of silhouettes
formed by tracing the outlines of visitors to the site, who
will climb the lower rungs of the scaffold and stand against
the wall. In this way the living activists of today will
become a part of the mural...literally the body of Harriet
Tubman.

Dreams

Throughout her life, Harriet experienced visions or dreams
that inspired her actions. At the sides of the mural, and in
the smaller walls in other localities will be a series of
vignettes based on those visions.

At the Harriet Tubman Park in Cambridge, her birthplace, a
monument will be specifically constructed. The small mural
will depict her birth as a symbolic beginning of the
anti-slavery movement as it changed from heroic acts of
individual resistance to a mass struggle of liberation.

All the murals will contain common visual elements meant to
weave the dreams together. Included in this will be ceramic
tile elements created by project volunteers. These tiles
will form borders around the painted images, as well as
singular pieces within the painted areas.

The images will depict some of the important chapters of
Harriets life:

- Her dreams about the Amistad and Nat Turner slave
rebellions, which inspired the beginnings of the
abolitionist struggle

- Experience as a slave and a worker, her work with
Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists who had a deep
understanding the class relationships at play in the war
against slavery

- Her success as a builder and conductor of the Underground
Railroad

- Collaboration with John Brown and his organization for the
raid on Harpers Ferry, an event which animated the
liberation struggle for decades to come

- Leadership as a spy, scout and guerilla in the military
conquest of the south, despite the prejudices against her as
both an African-American and a woman

- Early championing of the women's suffrage movement and
participation in the first wave of American feminism

- Experience as a nurse and educator under radical
reconstruction, and the attempt to hold in check the
awakened aspirations of black America

Taken as a whole, The Dreams of Harriet Tubman will provide
a glimpse of the past and a vision for the future. It will
look at the Civil War as the ending of an era and the
beginning of the emergence of the United States as a modern
nation. It will register the gains for human rights won with
the suppression of slavery. It will face with honesty the
limitations of that victory and the need to continue the
struggle to which Harriet Tubman dedicated her life.

Mike Alewitz
Muralist
May 1, 2000

______________________________________


4. Abolitionist's Rifle Engulfs N.J. Artist in Fray

06/13/00

Abolitionist's rifle engulfs N.J. artist in fray

By John Yocca, STAFF WRITER

Her every step a perilous one, famed abolitionist Harriet
Tubman could afford no slip-ups as she shuttled slaves to
freedom through the Underground Railroad.

Timing was tight, indecision an enemy. When escaped slaves
in her care hesitated on the frightening march to
liberation, Tubman, a determined and gritty former slave
herself, coaxed them northward with a loaded gun.

A century-and-a-half later, New Jersey artist Mike Alewitz
chose that Image of Tubman -- a lantern in one hand, a rifle
in the other -- as the centerpiece for one of five sprawling
ceramic murals he fashioned for the state of Maryland,
Tubman's birthplace.

For Alewitz, the depiction is appropriate, both historically
accurate And symbolic of the danger Tubman faced as she led
more than 300 slaves out Of captivity. But the artist's
creation has been less than well received by The nonprofit
group that was to display the work on an exterior wall in
Baltimore this month.

In a case that pits historical realism against modern
sensitivity to the Gun violence gripping American cities,
Associated Black Charities says it Will likely turn down the
piece because the weapon in Tubman's hand sends the wrong
message.

"We feel that in the year 2000, it is inappropriate for a
piece of artwork depicting guns and violence to be displayed
on our wall in Baltimore, which had more than 300 murders
last year," said Donna Jones Stanley, 44, the group's
executive director. "This is an organization that
strengthens the fabric of the African-American community,
and I'm not sure this depiction helps us as a community to
strengthen ourselves."

Stressing that she is opposed to censorship and that she
finds Alewitz's work aesthetically moving, Stanley
nevertheless said her group must be careful about what it
places on its high-profile building, visible up to a mile
away.

"It is a very prominent building," Stanley said. "That means
we have a lot of responsibility, and we take that
responsibility very seriously."

Today, the nonprofit's board of directors will vote on
whether to accept The mural. Stanley said she's confident
the board will back her Recommendation to pass on the work.

That's fine with Alewitz, 49, an internationally acclaimed,
New Brunswick-based artist who refused a compromise request
by Associated Black Charities to turn the rifle into a less
controversial staff.

"They don't have an objection to Harriet Tubman," Alewitz
said. "They have an objection to Harriet Tubman with a
rifle. It's like you want to see wolves in the wild -- but
without teeth. They can refuse the mural, and that's their
right. We'll find another wall."

The mural, a 25-foot-high, 130-foot-wide tiled mosaic, is
one of five Alewitz created for Baltimore Clayworks, a
ceramic arts group that Funded the venture with a $25,000
grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. Baltimore
Clayworks chose Alewitz from among hundreds of artists
across The country.

All five works feature Tubman, a native of Dorchester
County, Md.

Blaise DePaolo, the group's community programs coordinator,
said Clayworks stands behind Alewitz in the controversy and
will find someplace else to display the mural if it's turned
away.

The mosaic depicts Tubman as Moses parting the sea, an army
of liberated slaves and freedom fighters amassed behind her.
On one side of the work, white figures, representing slave
masters, are tossed from a boat in the roiling water.

Experts call the gun-wielding woman in the mural an accurate
Representation of Tubman, the most famous "conductor" on the
Underground Railroad, the network of people committed to
help slaves find freedom. Tubman and Others brought escaped
slaves from safehouse to safehouse on an arduous trek north.
Many of those stops were in New Jersey, including Cape May,
where Tubman worked in hotels.

The trip was dicey business. If caught, escaped slaves and
those who Helped them faced severe punishment, often death.

Taking no chances, Tubman, who escaped slavery at age 29,
armed herself With a pistol. And she wasn't shy about waving
it around to make a point.

"Sometimes she would hold a pistol to the slaves' heads and
say something like, 'Dead people don't tell no tales,' "
said Kay McElvey, a member of a research and information
team for the Harriet Tubman organization in Cambridge, Md.
"Sometimes she carried rifles as well."

For Alewitz, the Tubman theme was a natural fit. He's made a
career of working on behalf of the underdog, the oppressed
and the working class.

An ardent opponent of the Vietnam War during the late 1960s
and early 1970s, he later focused on labor causes. As the
artist in residence for the New Jersey Industrial Union
Council AFL-CIO, he designed signs and banners For striking
union workers.

Alewitz also serves as artistic director for the Labor, Art
and Mural Project, which is in the process of moving from
Rutgers University to Central Connecticut State University
in New Britain, Conn.

A 10-year New Jersey resident, Alewitz has traveled around
the world to paint murals, some of them with a decidedly
political bent. And while he's not one to back down from a
confrontation, he's not ruffled by the Baltimore flap.

"It's a work of art. They're blowing it out of proportion,"
he said. "It's one person's expression. You don't have to
agree with it."

______________________________________


6. Nothing Will Stop this Historic Endeavor

Tubman mural with musket is rejected

Associated Black Charities decides artwork conveys wrong
image for office

By Jamie Stiehm, Sun Staff

Saying it doesn't reflect their image, the Associated Black
Charities boardunanimously rejected last night a contentious
mural of Harriet Tubman carrying a musket, which was
intended for its downtown building at Cathedral and Chase
streets.

Mural artist Mike Alewitz and staffers from Baltimore
Clayworks, which commissioned the work, searched yesterday
for "appropriately visible" sites and walls in the city for
the larger-than-life image, which was originally planned to
stand 25 feet tall on a wall facing Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

"It needs to be a good public wall," Alewitz said.

"It's fine if it's not a good fit," Deborah Bedwell,
executive director of Clayworks, said before last night's
vote. Clayworks, a Mount Washington nonprofit, chose Alewitz
to portray the Underground Railroad leader in five works to
be installed in Maryland as part of a Mid-Atlantic Arts
Council project. She said his work centers on social justice
themes.

The musket in the mural design stirred an outcry about
historical truth vs. contemporary reality.

Some suggested that Alewitz's design, showing Tubman holding
a musket as she symbolically parts a Red Sea and leads
slaves to freedom, condones gun violence.

The issue triggered debate about whether it was appropriate
for Associated Black Charities' public wall in a city that
records at least 300 homicides a year.

"It has started the community discussing slavery, race and
history," said Donna Jones Stanley, the Associated executive
director, who recommended against Alewitz's design.

Since 1985, the Associated has been a leading presence in
the black community, giving nearly $6 million in grants to
programs benefiting the greater Baltimore area.

It is agreed Tubman carried a gun for protection, but
Stanley declared, "It is not historically correct. She
carried a pistol, not a rifle. It's his vision, but it's our
wall."

A few urged Alewitz to substitute a staff for the musket. He
refused last week, saying, "I will not disarm Harriet
Tubman. ... There was nothing safe about her." Phillip
Sterling and Rayford Logan wrote in "Four Took Freedom"that
Tubman made 11 trips from Maryland to Canada from 1852 to
1857, leadingabout 300 to freedom. "Her most famous trip
concerned a passenger who panicked and wanted to turn back.
Tubman was afraid if he left he would tortured and would
tell all he knew. The unwilling passenger changed his mind
when Tubman pointed a gun at his head and said 'dead folks
tell no tales.'"

Said Alewitz: "Nothing will stop this historic endeavor.
Harriet Tubman will live on the walls of Maryland."

______________________________________


7. Statement by Baltimore Clayworks

To: Baltimore Clayworks' friends, members of the Board of
Directors, Millennium Honorary Committee Members, interested
members of the broader community

From: Baltimore Clayworks - June 14, 2000

Re: The Dreams of Harriet Tubman mural project, and
specifically Moses, the mural sketch originally proposed for
the side wall of Associated Black Charities


Baltimore Clayworks was chosen to receive an Artist and
Communities grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation
because the foundation's selection panel felt that
Clayworks' history of involvement in bringing arts
activities into underserved communities, and of connecting
artists with community residents who have had little or no
access to artmaking, embodied the goals of the national
Artists and Communities initiative. Baltimore Clayworks'
artistic leadership chose artist Mike Alewitz from a
preselected pool of more than 100 visual artists for three
reasons:

o Alewitz' painting as represented in 10 slides of previous
work, was of an extraordinary artistic quality

o Alewitz has had a highly respected history,
internationally, of interactive mural making with ethnically
diverse community residents including youth, working people
and elders who have had little or no access to the arts

o Alewitz' themes of equality and social justice echoed
Clayworks'values as it approaches communities for arts
partnerships. It is important to understand that the
discussion that the community is having about the image of
an armed Harriet Tubman is simply a discussion about a
proposed piece of public art, and whether an historically
accurate image of Tubman as a leader of her people out of
the land of bondage (Moses) should be displayed in light of
contemporary public sensitivities about gun violence. There
are no divisions along racial lines; there are opinions on
both sides. The artist has prepared a statement concerning
the mural and its content. Please request it for in-depth
reference.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that there are
four more murals planned for sites in Maryland, and hundreds
of at-risk young people working in paint and clay to create
elements to be included in the murals.

The leadership position of Baltimore Clayworks is this:
Baltimore Clayworks stands true to its mission of artist-
centeredness and support; we will not tell any artist what
to create or what to change. We respect, however, the
decision of any community organization or institution to
decline partnership in any project or program we propose.
We expect a level of passion and commitment to positive
artist/community involvement from our partners.

John K. Smith, Chairman, Board of Trustees
Deborah Bedwell, Executive Director

_______________________________________________


8. Statement by Mike Alewitz

For Immediate Release:

The following statement was issued on June 14, 2000, by Mike
Alewitz, muralist and creator of "The Dreams of Harriet
Tubman."


"Harriet Tubman was a fierce opponent of slavery in all it's
forms. She was opposed by the southern slave-master and
northern industrialist alike. She was an organizer,
educator, leader of the abolitionist movement, feminist,
conductor on the underground railroad and armed
insurrectionist against slavery.

Then, as now, Harriet was feared not because she carried a
gun, but because she organized a mass, militant and
uncompromising struggle for social justice.

There are those who would like to transform Harriet Tubman
into a safe and acceptable icon for corporate America. They
wish to disarm her both physically and politically. I will
not help them. I will not disarm Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman does not belong to any individual or group.
She is a figure of international stature. She belongs to
working people throughout the world. Harriet Tubman's life,
the war to end slavery, and the continuation of that
struggle today, deserves to be portrayed in murals, poems
and songs by many artists.

The spirit of Harriet Tubman lives on today, with the
students protesting the World Trade Organizations economic
policies, in the prison cell of Mumia Abu Jamal and other
victims of racist injustice, in the strikes and struggles of
working people.

We intend to go forward and put Harriet Tubman on the walls
of Maryland. We intend to continue to educate and inform
about her life, not as a matter of historical record, but
because she is an inspiring example for working people
today.

We appeal to the people of Maryland to provide us with the
walls to do this."


Mike Alewitz is the Artistic Director of the Labor Art &
Mural Project (LAMP). He is Asst. Professor of Art at
Central Connecticut State University, and the author, with
Paul Buhle, of the forthcoming book: "Insurgent Images: the
Agitprop Murals of Mike Alewitz," Monthly Review Press, NY.

________________________________________


Mike Alewitz, Artistic Director
LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
c/o Department of Art
Central Connecticut State University
New Britain, CT 06050

Phone: (860)832-2359
Web: http://www.igc.org/laborart

-30-


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"If insurrection is an art, its main content is to know how to give the
struggle the form appropriate to the political situation."

			-Vo Nguyen Giap



"Rather than seeking comparabilities in statistical terms among what are
all too often superficial features of different situations, comparabilities
must be sought at the level of determinate mechanisms, at the level of
processes that are generally hidden from easy view."

			-Eleanor Burke Leacock



"Every day one has to struggle that this love to a living humanity
transform itself into concrete acts, in acts that serve as examples, as
motivation."

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