Segregation in USA

Introducing Segregation trought caricatures and street art

Hello class, I’m Rafael. Today, we are going to introduce segregation by studying caricatures and street art. I’m am here with Thomas, Charlotte and Yume.

So first of all, the Declaration of Independence which says that humans are created equal in their rights,  was signed in 1776, despite the fact that slavery had not been still legal. It took almost a century and a Civil War before slavery was abolished in 1875. Even then, equality before the law did not imply fair treatment.

Southern states found many ways to discriminate against colored people.

Both sides used caricatures and street art to promote their ideas.

Thank you Charlotte and Yume. Now we are going to talk about the work of Mr.Brainwash who is a famous artist known for his street art work. He created this mural painting so he could illustrate the decline of racism in America. First of all, we can see three well known characters such as Rosa Parks (on the left), Martin Luther King Jr. (in the middle) and Barrack Obama (on the right). Rosa Parks was the first Afro-American women to contest Segregation by sitting on a bench reserved for white people in a bus. Then, in the middle we can obviously see Martin Luther King Jr who was a civil right activist ; He was particularly famous for his non-violent fight against Segregation. Finally, we can see Barrack Obama who was the first black president of the United States. These three characters were put together so that they could stand strong against Segregation.

The text on the left side is very interesting and poetic.  (Lire : Rosa Parks sat, so Martin Luther King Jr could walk, Martin Luther King Jr walked, so that Barrack Obama could run, Barrack Obama ran so, that we could fly).

The text is obviously referring to these figures and underlines how related these characters are. The entire text is a gradation and there is a snowball effect between the different verbs . For example, the repetition of the verb walk refers to the historic « March of Washington for Jobs and Freedom »,  in 1963. That day Martin Luther King Jr walked to Licoln memorial followed by 300000 supporters and finished with his famous « I have a dream » speech.

 In a way, throughout this work of art we can say that Rosa Parks started started the battle against Segregation and that Barrack Obama finally fulfilled Martin Luther King dream by becoming the first black president of America.

Thank you for listening !

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