Civil Rights Movement
The Freedom Movement in Art

Art in Public Spaces  Atlanta GA  Birmingham AL  Memphis TN  Montgomery AL  Washington DC  Various locations Paintings, Drawings, & Sculpture Art Special Collections See also: Movement Posters Pins of the Freedom Movement Postage Stamps Feiffer Cartoons

Freedom Movement Art in Public Spaces

Atlanta GA

John Lewis, SNCC Atlanta street mural Artist: Sean Garrett

We Shall Always March Ahead (L to R) Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Martin Luther King, Coretta King, John Lewis Atlanta street mural Artist: Muhammad Yungai

Ruby Doris Robinson Smith, SNCC Atlanta street mural Artist: Charmaine Minniefield

Ella Baker, NAACP, SCLC, SNCC Atlanta street mural Artist: Charmaine Minniefield

Frank Smith, one of the architects if the Atlanta Student Movement and a founding Member of SNCC. By the Atlanta Student Movement Mural Project.

Hosea Williams (SCLC) Mural ~ Atlanta GA. Artist: Not identified.

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, Atlanta GA

The Three Pioneers, by Martin Dawe. 2019 Ford Greene, Ralph Long, Lawrence Williams First Black students Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

The First Graduate, by Martin Dawe Honoring Ronald Yancey, first Black graduate Georgia Institute of Technology

Birmingham AL

Mural Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Artist: Not identified Birmingham, AL

Foot Soldiers of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham, Alabama Sculptor: Ron McDowell

Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham, Alabama Sculptor: Ron McDowell

Detail of above.

The Kneeling Ministers by Raymond Kasky. Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham, Alabama Rev. John Porter, Rev. Nelson Smith Jr, Rev. A.D. King Just before being arrested, April 7, 1963

Memphis TN

I Am a Man Plaza. Memphis TN. Clayborn Temple, 1968 Strike Headquarters.

National Civil Rights Museum Memphis TN Sculptor: StudioEIS

National Civil Rights Museum Lorraine Motel, Memphis TN Artist: Not identified

Mural near National Civil Rights Museum Memphis, TN Artist: Not identified.

Wells Fargo Civil Rights mural, Memphis TN. Artist: Not identified

Montgomery AL

Civil Rights Martyrs Memorial, by Maya Lin. 1989 Southern Poverty Law Center Montgomery, AL

A Mighty Walk From Selma. Sunny Paulk and Corey Spearman. 2015 186 Lee St, Montgomery AL.

Wells Fargo Civil Rights mural, 2014 Artist: Vincent Morgan Montgomery, AL

Mural, Alabama State University, Montgomery. Artist: Not identified

National Memorial for Peace and Justice Montgomery, AL. MASS Design Group

Washinton DC

Daisy Bates, NAACP To be placed in the Staturary Hall U.S. Congress building

Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope MLK Memorial, Washington DC. 2011

Big Six Murals of 1963 March on Washington leaders
Temporarily displayed at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. in 2020.

James Farmer Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) by Mohammad Gafar

John Lewis Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) by Shawn Perkins

Martin Luther King Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) by Demont Pinder

A. Philip Randolph Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) Dorothy Height National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) by Dez Zambrano

Roy Wilkens National Association of Colored People (NAACP) by Jamaal Lamaj

Whitney Young, National Urban League (NUR) by Dez Zambrano

Various Locations

Mrs. Fannie Lee Chaney (mother of James Chaney) Alabama Street, San Francisco Shepard Fairey, 2016

Mission Street Mural, San Francisco.

The Clinton 12 First students to desegregate a state-supported high school in the South Sculptor: William F. (Bill) Duffy, 2007 Green McAdoo Cultural Center & Museum Clinton, Tennessee (USA).

Testament by John and Kathy Deering Little Rock, 2005

Martin Luther King, Little Rock 9 Mural Little Rock, Arkansas. By Menace and Resa.

The Greensboro Four, Technical State University Sculptor not identified.

Albany Civil Rights Memorial Charles Sherrod Civil Rights Park, Albany, GA Sculptor not identified.

Durham Civil Rights Mural By Brenda Miller Holmes and Dr. Benjamin Speller, 2015. Arts Council, Durham, NC.

Ella Baker Poor Peoples Campaign banner Created by Phoebe Rotter of Black Lives Matter Vermont 2018

A New Dawn By Ben Keller, 2021 WAPJ building, Torrington, CT Martin Luther king, Amanda Gorman, John Brown

Virginia Civil Rights Memorial, Richmond VA Stanely Bleifeld, 2009

Barbara Johns & Moton High student strikers Stanely Bleifeld, 2009 Virginia Civil Rights Memorial, Richmond VA

The Richmond 34, 2023 Germany Ray and Hamilton Glass. Richmond Performing Art Alliance Richmond, VA.

Mural commemorating "Bloody Sunday," artist unidentified Building at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge Selma, AL

A Mighty Walk From Selma. Sunny Paulk and Corey Spearman. 2015 186 Lee St, Montgomery AL.

Wells Fargo Civil Rights mural, 2014 Artist: Vincent Morgan Montgomery, AL

Changemaker of Oxford By Ella Cope Oxford, OH. (site of Freedom Summer training).

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, Ruleville MS. By Brian Hanlon, 2012

MLK39 Racial Equity Mural by Corey Pane. 2016. West Hartford Public Library.

Street mural, artist unidentified Philadelphia, PA

Three-panel mural in Jacksonville FL about the "Ax-Handle Saturday" sit-in of 1960 By Nicole Holderbaum.

NAACP Leader Rutledge Pearson Jacksonville, FL. By Nicole Holderbaum, shown with the students who helped her create the mural.

NAACP Leaders Rodney Hurst and Rutledge Pearson duPont Center, Jacksonville, FL by Celso Gonzalez of Puerto Rico

St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument Brian Owens, 2011 St. Augustine, FL

Mural, Alabama State University, Montgomery. Artist: Not identified

Dream, by Michael Florin Dente. Portland Oregon

The Chain Breakers by Sabrina Howard. COFO Bldg. Jackson, Mississippi L-R: Alyce Clarke, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses Rose Robinson, Louise Marshall, Albert Powell

Could You Get On The Bus? Freedom Riders National Monument, Anniston, AL By Joseph Giri, 2017.

Tribute to Freedom Riders and CORE leaders Jerome Smith and Dodie Smith-Simmons. New Orleans RTA bus, 2021 Artists: Ceaux Young, Taylor Ashby, Cierra Johnson and Camron Irvin

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (left), Dr. Martin Luther King (below). The SCLC Memorial Walkway Pavilion in Central New Orleans (near church where SCLC was founded in 1957). By artist Jessica Strahan

Septima Clark Mural, College of Charleston.

Un(re)solved: Say their names. Know their stories Touring installation using augmented-reality to bring civil rights era killings, often racist murders, out of the shadows of the past. Tribeca Film Festival installation. 2021.

James Farmer memorial, University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg VA.

Mural honoring Deacons for Defense and Justice Port Gibson, Mississippi

Icons of the Civil Rights Movement, 2021 by Eddie Mendieta, Nate Dee, Dahlia Perryman, and Tracy Guiteau West Palm Beach, Florida L-R: Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Harriet Tubman, John Lewis, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, and Ella Baker.

Statue of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, Forrest County courthouse, Hattiesburg MS.

Viola Liuzzo Viola Liuzzo Park Detroit, MI

Civil Rights Mural (Selma March), Flint Michigan. 2020 By Kevin "Scraps" Burdick

Freedom Movement Paintings, Drawings, & Sculpture

The Return Of The Soldier by Charles White. 1946

Awaken from the Unknowing, by Charles White. 1946

Pools of Defiance, Colin Bootman. 2001.

Walking, Charles Henry Alston. 1958

Racism/Incident at Little Rock Domingo Ulloa, 1957

Soldiers and Students, by Jacob Lawrence. 1962

Civil Rights Movement by Kalammeh

Birmingham Jail 1963. Joe Minter.

The Golden Rule, Norman Rockwell, 1961. Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA

The Problem We All Live With, Norman Rockwell. 1964.

Based on the sign in the Hattiesburg MS voter registration office. Artist: Unidentified.

We March for Civil Rights, by Tuwanda Harmon. 2013

Stand up for the Freedom Democrats MFDP or SNCC poster Artist name illegible.

Claudette Colvin Artist: Not identified Elizabeth Street, New York City

Rosa Parks Artist: Lava Thomas Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Jo Ann Robinson Artist: Lava Thomas Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Teacher & Civil rights leader Septima Clark NAACP, SCLC, Highlander Artist: not identified.

Drawing of Septima Clark teaching literacy in citizenship classes Artist: Not identified

Emmett Till: How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back Lisa Whittington 2012. Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Jackson, Mississippi.

Open Casket by Dana Schutz. 2016. Emmett Till.

Freedom Now! Artist: W. Smith, 1966

Unite by Barbara Jones-Hogu

Oretha Castle Haley, New Orleans CORE Artist: Jessica Strahan

Maya Angelou, by Stan Herd. 2022. Atlanta's Freedom Park.

"We Shall Overcome" Artist & date unknown.

The 1920s ... The Migrants Cast their Ballots. "Shows black people exercising the right to vote." By Jacob Lawrence Brooklyn Museum, NYC.

Homage To My Young Black Sisters, Elizabeth Catlett. 1968

Fill the Jails, by Claire O'Connor. 2014 Freedom Rider mug shots Collection of Claude LeFrambois, Montreal Quebec

Painting & poem created by Freedom School teacher Bill Light in Starkville MS, 1964

The Prints of Elizabeth Catlett

Crusaders for Justice (Thurgood Marshal)

I Have Studied in Ever Increasing Numbers

I Have Special Reservations

My Role Has Been Important in the Struggle to Organize the Unorganized

My Reward Has Been Bars

Civil Rights Congress

And a Special Fear for My Loved Ones

The Art of Clara Lang-Ezekiel

John Lewis, SNCC by Clara Lang-Ezekiel, 2020 (High-res version suitable for poster-printing available at the artist's website.)

March poster by Clara Lang-Ezekiel, 2020.

Gloria Richardson, SNCC. Drawn by Clara Lang-Ezekiel for Womens History Month series, 2021.

Please send images of Civil Rights Movement art to webmaster@crmvet.org.

Copyrights © to these images and sculptors belong to their creators. Commercial use is prohibited without the express written permission of the copyright owners. To identify the copyright owners (if known), simply let your cursor hover over the image to display the photographer's name, or view the image metadata.

© Copyright
Webspinner: webmaster@crmvet.org
(Labor donated)