When Women Pursue Justice
2005
JANET BRAUN-REINITZ, designer/lead artist
JANE WEISSMAN, project coordinator/artist
498 Greene Avenue at Nostrand Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY
45’ x 72’, acrylic on concrete
Photos © Jane Weissman
Principal Artists: Rikki Asher (Margaret Sanger), Leola Bermanzohn (Emma Goldman), Janet Braun-Reinitz (Shirley Chisholm), Maria Dominguez (Dolores Huerta), Lady Pink (Alice Paul), Nina Lasky (Angela Davis), Lucy Mahler (Audre Lorde), Kristi Pfister (Dorothy Day, face of Shirley Chisholm), Kristin Reed (Fannie Lou Hamer), Rochelle Shicoff (Guerrilla Girls), Tova Snyder (Wilma Mankiller), Nina Talbot (Betty Friedan & Gloria Steinem), Susan Togut (Clara Lemlich)
Catherine Gullon, Taleekqua Harris, Yashanna Joseph, Erica Mercado, and Brittany Simpkins – all students at the High School for Fashion Industries and Brooklyn residents – worked as paid interns, and over 30 artist friends/colleagues and community residents volunteered their labor throughout the three months of painting. Among them were members of the Ballard family which generously gave Artmakers permission to paint their wall.
When Women Pursue Justice celebrates 90 women who led or participated in movements for social change in the United States over the past 150 years. Native and foreign-born, Native American and women of color, these women often risked life and liberty to achieve voting rights, civil rights and racial justice, health and reproductive rights, gay rights, immigrant rights, environmental justice and protection, and workplace/arts access and equality. Today, many of these women are unknown to most Americans, their struggles never properly recognized or faded from memory. When Women Pursue Justice is Artmakers' effort to restore them to their proper place in history. Click here for a list of the women in the mural and here for the key to the mural.
Bedford-Stuyvesant is the birthplace and district of Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005), congresswoman and, in 1972, candidate for the Democratic-party nomination for president. The mural is dedicated to this outspoken and dynamic leader who said she didn’t want to be remembered as the first African-American woman this or the first woman that. Instead, she declared, “I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in the 20th century.” On her golden steed – inspired by Paolo Uccello’s St. George and the Dragon – this intrepid warrior dressed in armor of Malian Bògòlanfini or mudcloth leads activist women into battle, i.e., a political demonstration. She holds high a banner with the words “A Catalyst For Change.” Surrounding her are 13 “movement leaders,” their placard portraits painted by the 12 principal artists in their individual styles.
Small portraits of 76 “activists” appear throughout the mural. In the top left corner are nine nineteenth-century “ancestors” who inspired twentieth-century activism. Their accomplishments give truth to the words Susan B. Anthony penned shortly before her death in 1906 at age eighty-six: "Failure is impossible."
Saturday, October 15, dawned clear and bright, following a ten-day period of intermittent rain during which Artmakers needed to seal the mural and, as the scaffold got dismantled, plug and paint the holes left in the wall. Over 150 people filled the city-owned garden adjacent to the mural for the dedication and celebration of When Women Pursue Justice. State Senator Velmanette Montgomery (she retired in 2021) and Councilmember Leticia James (elected NYS Attorney General in 2018) spoke – their offices also generously funded the mural. Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman whose portrait is located to the right of Rosa Park also spoke, and Thomas and Dorothy Ballard, the building’s owners, were thanked for their generosity and friendship.
It was thrilling to welcome Shirley Chisholm’s nephew along with community activist Joan Maynard and civil rights activist Gladys Harrington. Several of the mural’s women were represented by family members and friends: Bella Abzug (daughter Liz Abzug), Liz Christy (colleague Lys McLaughlin), Yuri Kochiyama (grandson Zulu Williams), Barbara Lee (cousin Zenobia Lewis), Audre Lorde (daughter Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins), Faith Ringgold (daughter Barbara Wallace), and Clara Lemlich (granddaughter Jane Margules and great grandnephew Aaron Shneyer; they had not known each other until that day).
More than a historical commemoration of past achievements, When Women Pursue Justice reflects current issues and concerns as well as ongoing efforts of today's activist women. Artmakers hopes that When Women Pursue Justice will inspire all women and men to work for justice, equality and peace throughout the 21st century.
In 2006, Artmakers developed three distinct exhibitions based on the mural and published the 48-page illustrated catalog When Women Pursue Justice. The catalog contains an interpretive essay by Julia Watson, a key to the mural, and short biographies of the mural’s 90 women and 12 principal artists. Click here to view the catalog. Teaching artists Rochelle Shicoff and Susan C. Harts developed a set of focus questions for use in the classroom in conjunction with social studies, art, and English curricula.
The Women of Nostrand and Greene, a one-hour film by Dave Reinitz (H2F Comedy Productions, 2008) documents the creation of the mural. Click here to view an excerpt from the film.