On Saturday, February 20, the NYC Urban Sketchers centered the day’s theme on Black history, too cursorily studied, if not fully excluded, from American curricula. Our sketching day involved celebrating the oft-diminished role of African-Americans in the continued shaping of the American story.
![The Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of the First March for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, where protestors led by John Lewis and Rev. Hosea Williams were met with violent state “troopers on horseback, [who] charged the marchers, attacking them with nig…](/s/210220_NYC-USk_EdmundPettusBridge.jpg)
The Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of the First March for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, where protestors led by John Lewis and Rev. Hosea Williams were met with violent state “troopers on horseback, [who] charged the marchers, attacking them with nightsticks and tear gas.” (Sketch based on a photograph by Nathan Holth.)
The F.W. Woolworth’s whites-only counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, where four African-American students — the A&T Four — sat in peaceful protest until closing time. The protest sparked similar peaceful protests around the country (sketch based on a photograph courtesy of the United States Civil Rights Trail).
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in Washington, D.C. in 2016. “Sir David Adjaye’s approach created a meaningful relationship to this unique site as well as a strong conceptual resonance with America’s longstanding African heritage. The 313,000-square-foot building comprises a three-tiered structure covered in bronze plates. Designed to shade the glazed facades behind, the filigree cladding is patterned to reference the history of African American craftsmanship." (ArchDaily; sketch based on a photograph by Brian P. Irwin)
National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda S. C. Gorman reading her poem at the Presidential Inauguration ceremony for President Joseph R. Biden (sketch based on a photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images).
And one last thing I came across sometime last year and revisited for the day’s sketch session:
African-American soldiers served in the Spanish-American War as “Immunes” against tropical diseases in Cuba and the Philippines. They were deployed in several regiments, with a small handful of soldiers defecting to the Filipino Army. (Sketch based on a photograph by C.H. Graves, courtesy Library of Congress.)
