Chicago Mural Featuring Kamala Harris Faces Opposition

Wabash Arts Corridor photo

Two murals in the Wabash Arts Corridor were supposed to depict historic women’s heroines, but organizers are seeking an alternate Loop site for the modern piece, since it was deemed too political by the owner of a parking lot that surrounds it.

“On the Wings of Change” shows a little girl looking up from a history book at 10 Chicago women who made Illinois the first state east of the Mississippi River to give women limited voting rights in 1913. But “Speak Up” has been stalled, because it would depict the first female Vice President, Kamala Harris, during the pre-2020 election debate with Mike Pence.

“Wings,” by Diosa (Jasmina Cazacu) went up first in October 2021 on the wall behind 33 E. Ida B. Wells Drive. “Speak Up,” by Dorian Sylvain, was set to follow directly opposite on the long and narrow, 240 foot by 30-foot wall of the University Center behind 525 S. State St. as a replacement for “Harmony.” The two pieces were commissioned together, but the artists worked separately – yet in complementary palettes.

“You can’t get any better. It was like divine intervention to have two walls: one visually-based and one text-based, to have not only the history, but the present, as the culmination of what these women fought for,” Michelle Duster, a member of the Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee, said of “Wings” and “Speak Up,” respectively.

However, when the owner of the parking lots surrounding the murals saw a sketch of “Speak Up,” he refused to allow Sylvain to place her apparatus there – even though the work space had already been paid for, Duster said.

“His argument was it was too political. [But] we tried to explain to him it’s not political. It’s history. If you like Kamala or not, she was the first female and the first person of color to become vice president of the United States. That’s not partisan, that’s just history. The murals were created to complement each other. There’s no way Kamala would have become vice president of the United States without women getting the historic right to vote. And the idea of her becoming vice president exactly 100 years after the 19th Amendment passed showed the continuum. The words ‘I’m Speaking’ were what the women in the mural were saying. ‘Hear us. Here’s our voice. We are speaking.’”

Although the parking lot owner requested new designs for the 240-foot by 30-foot wall, the Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Committee is instead seeking a new, equally prominent South Loop site for Sylvain’s mural. The Wabash/Ida B Wells intersection has high visibility: over 10,000 pedestrians, drivers – and riders on the CTA Orange and Green Lines – pass it every day.

Sylvain’s previous works include the “Remembering AfriCOBRA Community Wall on the Bronzeville Mariano’s, Margaret Gwendolyn on the Forum Theater and “Banking on the Future" at the abandoned South Shore Bank. “She deserves to have her work displayed,” Duster said.

Duster, who is the great-granddaughter of anti-lynching journalist and early 20th century activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, said that the impetus for the murals came after she was contacted about a New York suffrage sculpture. Ultimately, her greatgrandmother was not included, and so she began to think about a mural, which would be cheaper than a sculpture, with the capacity for depicting more people. She was also on a book tour for her biography of her great-grandmother, “Ida B. the Queen,” and the mural was a natural follow-up to questions about her next project.

“Wings” depicts Illinois history all the way back to the 1860s and the first women’s suffrage organization in the state. The 10 women depicted (see sidebar, page) include Jane Addams, Fannie Barrier Williams, Myra Bradwell, Mary Fitzbutler Waring, Mary Livermore, Catharine Waugh McCulloch, Agnes Nestor, Ida B. Wells, Grace Wilbur Trout and Frances Willard: seven white and three African American Chicago area women (see story, page 8).

In addition to Duster, the Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee includes: Meg Duguid, executive director of the Department of Exhibitions, Performing and Student Spaces, at Columbia College, which oversees the Wabash Art Corridor; Catherine Mardikes, bibliographer for classics at the University of Chicago Library; Kris Nesbitt, former chief of strategic initiatives at the Chicago History Museum; Lori Osborne of the Evanston History Center and director of the Frances Willard House Museum; and Neysa Page-Lieberman, co-founder of Monuments to Movements.

Wabash Arts Corridor photo

Fundraising has surpassed $100,000, with donations from individual supporters and the Chicago Foundation for Women, Jane Walker by Johnnie Walker, The Harnisch Foundation, Chicago Women’s History Center and the University Center. The delay has cost the project thousands of dollars, Duster said.

“I am taking it personally,” Duster said. “It’s my reputation. People donated and I want to see it completed.”

Duster said she doesn’t see the parking lot owner’s argument that “Speak Up” will hurt his business. People just park close to their destination, she said.

“If there’s some people who decide ‘I don’t want to park in that lot, because of what’s on the wall,’ there’s probably an equal number of people who will say ‘I want to park in this parking lot because of what’s on the wall,’ some women for whom it is their favorite lot.” The committee also used the argument that the mural could become a tourist attraction, with national exposure.

“Speak Up” is mostly text, Duster said, although it does depict Harris during the debate with Pence. She twice told him “I’m speaking,” when he interrupted her rebuttals: first when she disagreed that the Trump administration’s slow response to the COVID pandemic was an attempt to keep the populace calm and second when he said that Joe Biden would immediately raise taxes if he were elected, according to CNN.com.

“There was no real contest in the vice-presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence,” The Guardian. com noted on Oct. 7, 2020. “Harris wiped the floor with him.

Pence ignored, patronized and talked over the two women in the room [including moderator Susan Page of USA Today]. [Harris’s] strategy was cool competence. His was sexist entitlement.”

Parking lot owner Thomas R. Baryl, vice president of People’s Auto Parking, initially told StreetWise to speak to his attorney. Then he said, “we like art, we’re apolitical. If you look at the Wabash Arts Council, they have a lot of nice art.” Baryl said he is also grateful to customers from Columbia College.

“In hindsight,” the Harris mural “might be art to someone,” he said. “I just didn’t want any statement.”

Baryl termed “On the Wings of Change” slightly political. "But we actually thought it was important to women’s history, especially Ida B. Wells.”

“Wings” is non-controversial because its subjects are longdead, however, Baryl said.

On the other hand, Harris is the sitting vice president, he added.

“In this current environment, what if Trump people want to put up a mural over the “Bubblegum Moose” [at 710 S. Wabash, east of the Wings mural, also in the parking lot]. Where do you stop?”

In the meantime, Duster said she hopes the women suffragists’ mural will make people curious about them – and start a conversation about the hard struggle for voting rights that many women take for granted.

“It was an ugly history – very violent – a soap opera. I teach, and most of my students just don’t know about it. This is a history that needs to become more well-known.”

by Suzanne Hanney

Wabash Arts Corridor photo

Cornelius J. Washington Jr. re 'ON THE WINGS OF CHANGE' mural

The 'On the Wings of Change' mural was created by artist Diosa (Jasmine Cazacu) on the south wall of 33 E. Ida B. Wells Drive on the Columbia College Chicago campus.

It tells the story of women’s activism through portraiture and is the first large-scale public history tribute in the city of Chicago to celebrate local suffragists who participated in the decadeslong fight for women’s full inclusion in our democracy. It also features 10 of the movement’s leaders from the Chicago area and a representation of the future of female leadership.

The amazing 10 women featured are Jane Addams, Myra Bradwell, Mary Livermore, Catharine Waugh McCulloch, Agnes Nestor, Grace Wilbur Trout, Mary Fitzbutler Waring, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Frances Willard and last, but definitely not least, Fannie Barrier Williams.

March 2023 is the federal government's designation of Women's History Month The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum all join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.

However, I am especially grateful and thankful for the many influential women in my life. The beautiful murals representing these 10 powerful matriarchs is a testament of just how blessed this world really is. It also represents how the power of print, paint and passion can promote peace!

Vendor A. Allen on the 'SPEAK UP' mural

What is the big deal about Kamala Harris becoming president of the United States in case something should happen to our beloved 46th president, Joe R. Biden, who was sworn in Jan. 20, 2021 and who was born Nov. 20, 1942. That makes him 81 years old, and in 2023, he would be the oldest president in the history of the United States.

I am sure there are concerns as to whether age would affect his judgment or health, if he were to run again for the presidency. Many may call for Kamala Harris as an identity-politics pick, just to bring in Black voters. Call it what you want. He won, she’s in, and we as Blacks support her in backing Joe Biden and in upholding the Constitution of the United States of America. She is the highest ranking female official in U.S. history.

Harris also previously served as attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017 and as U.S. senator representing California from 2017 to 2021. She is well-educated and has been a servant of this country for many years. So let us not be afraid of the fact that she’s a lady and a Black lady, the first female to become vice president of the United States of America. She has the background of a well-qualified candidate for this position, and if something happened to the president, she is able to step up to be President of the United States.

America has been founded on principles of all men are created equal and have inalienable rights. Does this not include women and Blacks? Or are we still playing games of saying one thing and then believing or acting on another? Are we living by fear of what may happen if a certain race or gender gets into office?

President Barack Obama is an example of breaking the race barrier, and Lori Lightfoot is another example of women crossing the gender barrier, becoming the first Black, female mayor of Chicago.

Times are changing and we have to trust the Founding Fathers' political credo of a government by the people, for the people – as well as the motto on our dollar bills: "In God We Trust."

Vendor Jacqueline Sanders on IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was born into slavery July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, MS, but was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War. Both her mother and father, as well as an infant brother, died in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic that affected people in the Mississippi River Valley.

Wells was visiting her grandmother in Memphis at the time, so she went to work with the help of her grandmother and moved there with her siblings. She became a teacher and soon co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. She reported on incidents of racial segregation and inequality.