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Faith Ringgold

Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 2008

Description

Maker

  • Limited Editions Club, publisher
  • Faith Ringgold, b. 1930, American
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929 - 1968, American, author

Title

Letter from Birmingham City Jail

Year

2008

Medium

Book containing eight color screenprints

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • ink,
  • gold foil,
  • linen,
  • cardboard

Supports

  • wove paper

Dimensions

37.1 x 31.8 x 2.9 cm (14 5/8 x 12 1/2 x 1 1/8 inches) book

Signature / Inscription / Marks

signed "Faith Ringgold" in graphote on page 57, with the edition "126" given in graphite (from a total of 420)

Identification

Edition

126/420

Place

New York

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Books

Credit

Georgianna Sayles Aldrich Fund

Object Number

2009.85

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Former Glory

July 27, 2018 - January 20, 2019

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, with 50 other demonstrators for nonviolent resistance. From his jail cell, he wrote a response to eight white clergymen who had chastised the “confrontational” nature of civil rights movement tactics, calling for protestors’ “peaceful obedience” of the law, which allowed segregation. In his letter, King defends nonviolent direct action and the necessity of civil disobedience in confronting injustice.

Artist-activist Faith Ringgold has illustrated King’s letter in eight serigraphs. Here, two “colored” children are denied access to Funtown, an Atlanta amusement park. The flags flying over what seems to be a wholesome American scene ask viewers to consider how many people have been systematically excluded from activities and institutions in service to whiteness.

Drawing Conclusions

January 22 - September 25, 2016

In this book, iconic scenes from the civil rights movement accompany a letter Dr. King wrote while jailed in Birmingham, Alabama. Ringgold reflects in the introduction, “What [King] has to say about the life and struggle of black people in America is a treatise on freedom and justice and a model for democracy in the world.”

Related

No Image Available

Faith Ringgold

Letter from Birmingham City Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr., 2008
No Image Available

Faith Ringgold

box/slipcover (container), 2008

More objects +

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Letter from Birmingham City Jail with the accession number of 2009.85. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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