For my visit to a Charleston museum, I decided to go to the Gibbes for the first time. At the advice of the wonderful women upfront I headed up the stairs to the third floor. Upon entering I was immediately greeted by the work of William Johnson, primarily his Fighters for Freedom series. This series from the mid 1940’s is a tribute to African American scientists, activists, teachers and the like who were working to bring peace to the world. It acknowledges their accomplishments as well as the struggles of racism and violence they faced and overcame on their journey to make our country a better place for everyone regardless of race.

Personally, I found this collection to be overwhelming as it puts illustrations to all of the events and people I have been learning about since I was a child. This resulted in the images being more powerful and me having to sit down and reflect. Not only was the imagery potent, I also found myself learning something about revolutionary America that I had never heard about before which very much surprised me. The aforementioned something new being the story of Crispus Attucks who was a freeman killed during the Boston Massacre.

I also learned that for some reason “the martyrdom of this Black man was largely erased” until his story was published in a book nearly seventy years later. After the stories publication Attuck’s name became a rallying cry during the civil war and his sacrifice & courage were revered. This story honestly left me with more questions that there may not be an answer to. Specifically why was his story forgotten for so long?  And as a follow up, Would his death have been forgotten the same way if he had not been African American or would have been deified like one of our founding fathers?

Overall, I am elated to have been able to experience and illustrated version of the history that I have only ever read about in books. Seeing a visual representation of these figures and events removes them from this almost mythological space in my mind and makes them seem more tangible in a way that isn’t offputtingly brutal. It probably helps that Johnson’s work is more abstract and therefore more appealing to the eye. In other words he is able to present images of horrible things in a manner that does not seem to look particularly horrible without removing the impact.