Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Children’s Books
This exhibition is the first of its kind to delve into the events, people, and themes of the civil rights movement as told through picture books. Eighty artworks evoke the power of the era that shaped American history and continues to reverberate today. Picture the Dream presents three thematic sections exploring the forces that sparked the civil rights movement, its key players and events, and stories about the reemergence of activism in contemporary America. From Brown vs. the Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the March on Washington and Black Lives Matter, the picture books’ topics bridge the past and present, emphasizing how historical moments and leaders continue to inspire the struggle for equal rights.
Curated by Andrea Davis Pinkney.
Co-organized by The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia.
What to Expect
Picture the Dream features 81 original artworks by 40 artists that explore the historic events, people, and repercussions of the civil rights movement. The exhibition is divided into three thematic sections. Visitors may watch a short film containing news clips and interviews with civil rights activists and artists. There is a reading area with a complete library of books represented in the exhibition and an activity table where guests may share their definitions of freedom, equality, and activism.
You may not leave Picture the Dream feeling hopeful. That’s all right. Better, maybe, that you feel moved in a different way. Generations galvanize early. Teach your children well, and maybe the next chapter will be different. Picture the Dream can help.Murray WhyteThe Boston Globe, April 9, 2021
They came on foot. They came on buses. They came in packed cars. On bikes. On skates. In trucks. They came from far-off states and from around the corner. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom brought 250,000 determined souls to the nation’s capital. To be seen. To be heard. To show the world what it means to dream. It was August 28, 1963. The artists whose works render that memory show the magnitude of that day. The march became front-page news, due in large part to Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream for a world that would let us all be free at last. Black people, White people, Christians, and Jews, together on the sea of King’s dream, and theirs.
Nobody was safe from arrest for participating in marches and protests. Even children were sent to jail, made to sleep on the coils of inequality.
Standing up often began by sitting down. Some of the most powerful nonviolent protests happened when groups of people staged sit-ins at segregated places. These quiet acts of resistance were started by students—Black kids and White kids, side by side for a common cause. In many instances, the lunch counters where they sat served as their greatest support, allowing them to hold fast to firm foundations to keep from balling their fists when tempted to strike back. Even when ketchup, mustard, and ignorance were squirted in their eyes, they never lost sight of hope. In some picture books, such as Sit-In, illustrated by Brian Pinkney, the lunch counter becomes a road, twisting on, up, and across racism’s great divide.
On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges took a heroic step toward equality. She firmly planted her feet, gathered her courage, and proved that even a tiny child can stand tall. Ruby’s white dress and hair bow told the world she was as bright as any kid and deserved a good education, even when the hard shoes of prejudice stood nearby, threatening to stomp on her little girl grit.
Even something as free flowing as water was kept separate. Segregated fountains were a hallmark of the unfair treatment Black people received. Kids who wanted a cool sip on a hot day had to quench their thirst apart from each other. One got clean water; the other was forced to drink brown stink. Guess who had to swallow the dirty stuff.
Children were at the heart of the struggle for fairness. When the laws said Black people and White people had to be separated, some kids reached past these barriers to forge friendships. Children kept their eyes fixed on the horizon, even when Jim Crow peered down through stormy clouds.
In 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till lost his life at the hands of hatred. Jim Crow, the bird that represented segregation, was at its most powerful. In Philippe Lardy’s haunting image, Emmett Till peers through a wreath of thorns and chains.
PJ Loughran, Illustration for Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery. Collection of the artist. © 2015 PJ Loughran. Used by permission of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Featured Artists
Stephen Alcorn, Benny Andrews, Keturah A. Bobo, R. Gregory Christie, Bryan Collier, Raúl Colón, Floyd Cooper, Shane W. Evans, AG Ford, George Ford, Laura Freeman, Vashti Harrison, Ekua Holmes, Brittany Jackson, Gordon C. James, Charlotta Janssen, Leonard Jenkins, Tim Ladwig, Philippe Lardy, Earl Bradley (E. B.) Lewis, PJ Loughran, Frank Morrison, Innosanto Nagara, Kadir Nelson, Vanessa Brantley Newton, Brian Pinkney, Jerry Pinkney, Andrea Pippins, Nate Powell, Sean Qualls, Selina Alko, James E. Ransome, Peter Reynolds, Faith Ringgold, Van Thanh Rudd, Jared Andrew Schorr, Brian Selznick, Shadra Strickland, John Thompson, Eric Velasquez, Purple Wong
