Civil Rights Movement: Respond and Relate |Activity

 Invite students to explore the artwork from the image set in pairs or small groups, recording their observations on sticky notes. As part of this exercise, you may wish to gather images from contemporary news to correspond with the artwork from the civil rights movement. For example, juxtapose a photograph from a Black Lives Matter protest with an image from a 1960s prayer demonstration.

As they explore, encourage students to write down how each image makes them feel, what it makes them think about, and any questions it prompts. Once students have examined all the images, debrief as a group by discussing the following questions:

• What stood out to you or surprised you about the artwork?
• What has changed since the civil rights movement? What has not changed?
• What does it mean to fight for civil rights today? What does it mean to be an activist?
• What are some social or political issues that you care about? What matters to you?

As a follow-up, ask students to create a poster about an issue that they care about.

How might art be a vehicle to express support for an issue or advocate for a cause?What does protest mean to you? Distribute large sheets of paper with the word protest circled in the middle to small groups of students. Ask students to work together to write down words or phrases that come to mind when they think about protest. Ask each group to share the results of their “protest map.”

Ask students to identify the parts of the image (its pieces and components; be specific), the purpose of the work of art (what it is for, why it might have been made), and what they wonder about the work (any questions they have). Then have groups with different images share their thoughts with each other.As a large group, generate a list of current events in the news. These issues might be of local, regional, or national significance, but they should be complex issues that the students care about. Examples might include universal health care, transgender rights, or immigration. Use a democratic method (e.g., sticker voter) to identify an issue that students care about most.Create posters using whatever mediums you have at hand, and then as a class determine how and when you would like to share them publicly. Could they be exhibited in your school, or is there an opportunity to use them in a public space outside your school to advocate for your cause? How might you use your posters to spark discussion or dialogue with others?

Ernie Barnes was born July 15, 1938 in Durham, North Carolina during the height of the Jim Crow Era. He lived in a section of the city called “The Bottom” with his parents and younger brother, James. His father, Ernest Barnes, Sr. was a shipping clerk for Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. His mother, Fannie Geer, supervised the household for a prominent attorney who shared his extensive art book collection with the young “June” Barnes.

Known for his unique “neo-mannerist” approach of presenting figures through elongated forms, he captured his observations of life growing up in North Carolina, playing professional football in the NFL (1960–1964), and living in Los Angeles. Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective includes examples of his paintings of entertainment and music, and also highlights how Barnes, the official artist of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, extensively represented athletes and sports.

“While not widely known within the mainstream art world, Barnes is revered by a diverse group of collectors and admirers across the country,” said guest curator Bridget R. Cooks, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Art History at the University of California, Irvine. Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective is curated by Cooks with assistance from Vida L Brown, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager. The Pasadena Museum of California Art originated the exhibition.

Ernie Barnes’s (1938–2009) painting The Sugar Shackis likely familiar. The 1976 work depicting a dance scene—which was the cover art for Marvin Gaye’s albumI Want You—achieved cult status by regularly appearing on the hit sitcom Good Times, inspiring a community of television viewers who discussed it after each episode.