rather than face human bondage. Upon each of the slaves is a branding of the fleur-de-lis (for those who don't know what that is just think of the New Orleans Saints and the Louisiana Logos). New Orleans was said to be one of the largest slave ports in America and was colonized by the French, among others. The fleur-de-lis is said to be a French Catholic symbol, among other European cultures, that was branded upon African slaves as a mark of property. For those who are reading this, I want you to research it and then think of all the Blacks that you see wearing this symbol as jewelry, as tattoos, and on clothing.

The middle image represents the near-past. Images from the early Twentieth Century to the 70s are represented. In this section there is a silhouette of a lynching, a police officer sicking his dog upon a Civil Rights Protester, and also images of the Black Panthers and others protesting for Civil Rights. But the most compelling image is of the man being burnt to death. This was taken from an image of the 1919 Omaha, Nebraska courthouse lynching. For more information on this horrible event click on this link:

http://www.nebraskastudies.org

The final collage below Bob Marley's guitar represents the present. Here I have made a transition from my African-American struggles to world struggles. Right below Bob Marley's hand is the infamous Jena, Louisiana tree with the noose hanging from it. This was the event where some white students hung up a noose after some Black students sat underneath the "white tree." Although the Vice-Principle of the school tried to expelled the white students, the superintendent reinstated the students and said that hanging the noose was only a prank. This was the infamous Jena Six incident that resulted in close to 60 million people marching on the small Louisiana town for justice for six Black teenagers locked up on trumped-up charges. Below the tree is a malnourished child from Darfur. Across from him to the left is a Chinese military police officer getting ready to strike a Tibetan monk. Below them are different races of people with holding up picket signs with slogans reading: Justice for Sean Bell (an unarmed Black man shot at 50 times by New York police, 19 of the shots killed him), Justice for Meagan Williams (a 20 year old Black woman held hostage and tortured by 6 white people in West Virginia), Freedom for Darfur and Tibet and Make Love Not War.

Music and Movies

Each time I work on an art project I usually listen to a certain type of music and / or watch a certain type of movie. The whole time I worked on Bob Marley, from pencil to rendering in color, I played all of his music. When I got the other images I watched movies like Sankofa, 500 Years Later, Do the Right Thing, Rosewood (for the first time in my life) and Bamboozled. Yes, I watched all of these movies at once for they were during the final 13+ hours.

Sankofa is a movie by Haile Germia that was released in 1995. It is a movie much like Roots, but much shorter and very compelling. It tells the story of a Black super model who is taking her superficial exotic photos at one of the Islands of No Return in Africa. During one of her ventures through the slave pits, her spirit is transported to the past as she is whipped and shackled along with the rest of her Ancestors for the journey to the Americas.

500 Years Later was directed by Owen 'Alik Shahadah, and written by M.K. Asante, Jr.. It is a documentary that examines the impact and myths of slavery that has affected Africa and Africans throughout the Diaspora.

Do the Right Thing and Bamboozled are two of my favorite Spike Lee movies. Do the Right Thing is about a Brooklyn neighborhood in a hot summer. The summer gets even hotter as a riot happens after Radio Raheem is killed by police officer. Bamboozled is Spike Lee's take on a new age minstrel show and to me, the movie speaks volumes of how the entertainment industry uses Black artists to create stereotypical caricatures of themselves.

The movie that impacted me most was Rosewood. It was about a town that was established by Blacks. When a white woman is beaten and possibly raped by a white character, the woman falsely accuses a black man. The town's whites gather in a lynch mob and ended up destroying Rosewood. Official records state that the week of destruction left eight people dead: six blacks and two whites. It is speculated that more was killed. After the massacre, the blacks left, or escaped, the Florida town.

Reception

The reception of Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom exceeded what I had envisioned. The spectators at the opening exhibition to The Colors of One Love saw so many messages in the drawing that I did not even see. But that is the beautiful thing about art and the direction that I took when preparing this piece. Usually with my art I try to answer questions. With Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom I instead wanted to provide the questions to create a greater debate. That debate was very beautiful as both Black and white spectators gave their own interpretations of the composition. No one was wrong in their interpretation, even if it was far from what I meant to do in the piece.

Like Bob Marley in Redemption Song, Won't You Help to Sing Songs of Freedom was my personal journey to find myself and my position as an artistic-activist. I found that I don't have to solve everything. I found that I don't have create solutions to the problems that we face as the oppressed people. Sometimes the People just need the questions and that is what I try to provide now as an artist.

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