Semester Project

For my semester project I plan to create an article about prominent African American female artists who advocated for gender and race equality. I plan to do an online newspaper article highlighting specific female artists that made a mark in history. I plan to first describe the inequality throughout history between races and genders, such as women could not vote and black women could not vote even after the law passed allowing women to vote ( The Nineteenth Amendment was passed in the 1920s allowing women to vote. However, African American women were unable to freely exercise their right to vote up until the 1960s. ) I then plan to introduce several African American artists that tried to fight the inequality through their work. I plan to name my newspaper “Art Society” and plan to title my article “African American Women Painting the Road to Equality!”. I will include photos of the artists along with a short background summary  and examples of their work that relate to gender and race inequality. Some artists that I plan to mention in my article  are Samella Lewis, Betye Saar, Elizabeth Catlett, Adrian Piper and Loïs Mailou Jones. I also plan to touch upon the Harlem Renaissance and the explosion of great art that came from that period created by African Americans, specifically the women. I chose this topic because I, myself, am an African American woman who wants to make a difference in society whether it be through art or my desired profession as a social worker.