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Portraits of Courage
These aren’t just people in paintings looking at you. They are people imploring you to listen and act.
Robert Shetterly is the painter of Americans Who Tell the Truth, a series of portraits honoring the words and work of courageous Americans throughout history.
I did not want to paint these portraits. Over 25 years, I had built up a career as a surrealist painter-enough of a career to pay my bills, work full time, and, it seemed to me, fulfill my societal obligations as an artist. I had never painted a portrait.
Then September 11, 2001... then a war launched not against the perpetrators of the crime but against a country where they had some training bases... then the blatantly false reasons promoted by our government for the preemptive war on Iraq. My sense of obligation as an artist changed.
At first, what I wanted most was to express my grief, cynicism, and shame. But I soon realized that agonizing over my shame for this country would lead me nowhere positive. Why, I wondered, don't I surround myself with people who make me feel proud, people who have insisted that this country live up to its own professed ideals about inalienable rights, equality, and justice? Why don't I invoke their spirits by painting their portraits?
I did not want to support the myth of American exceptionalism, the stories of power and domination that we tell to set ourselves apart from the rest of humankind, but to tell the story of this country's long and courageous struggle for justice. Our revolution did not end in 1787. At the signing of the Constitution, we did not free the slaves, give political rights to freed African Americans, Native Americans, women, the disabled, or poor whites. Our revolution was just beginning.
I decided to portray real, ordinary people who continued that revolution by fighting to extend rights to everyone, whose persistence and courage changed their own lives and provided role models of all of us. "Without courage," William Sloane Coffin said, "there are no other virtues." Any person acting with courage for justice, becomes a teacher, becomes a light in the darkness, encourages all of us to become our own lights. Just as fear is infectious, so is courage.
Think of Sojourner Truth, the illiterate ex-slave, who became one of the greatest leaders for women's rights and the abolition of slavery. Today we remember and admire her, not her rich white owner-not his social status, money, or privilege, but her courage. Colonel Ann Wright's resignation from the diplomatic corps in protest of the illegal invasion of Iraq was not intended to make herself a celebrity. She resigned to better defend the Constitution that she had sworn to protect. Think of Rachel Carson, dying with cancer, refusing to be intimidated by the chemical companies who were using all of their power to humiliate and discredit her when she exposed how their chemicals were poisoning the natural world. What a debt we owe to her courage!
At the same moment that I got the idea to paint the portraits, I knew that the words of the subjects had to be on their portraits. The statements being made about various forms of justice had to be literally spelled out. These aren't just people in paintings looking at you. They are people imploring you to listen and act.
When I began painting, I didn't expect to share the portraits-I imagined a stack in my attic that would make me feel better. I set a goal of 50 portraits, but never expected to reach it. Now there are 150 portraits. They travel to schools, colleges, libraries, museums, and community centers all over the country.
I titled the collection "Americans Who Tell the Truth" to recognize that telling the truth about our nation and its needs is not a small act, but one of great bravery. Marion Wright Edelman, head of the Children's Defense Fund, once said, "What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children not to be violent while marketing and glorifying violence. I believe adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America." I have repeated that quote to students of all ages all over this country and have yet to find a student who disagreed with it.
I would not classify my decision to give up my former artistic career to paint these portraits as an act of courage, but I would call it an act of defiance, of resistance, of refusal to accept a lie as a patriotic reason for war, of refusal to accept that a country that allows a presidential election to be stolen is the greatest democracy on earth. The portraits are an affirmation that only through persistent courage and dedicated citizenship can we maintain our ideals. If we want to define the destiny of this country as a movement toward enlightenment and justice, we have to accept the responsibility of making that happen.
As Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." He also said, "Find out what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will be imposed on them." For me, those two quotes explain all we need to know about the interests of power and the necessity of citizenship.
Painting the portraits has been an enormous education for me. Cynicism about corruption and hypocrisy is hard to maintain once you have studied the lives of John Lewis, Alice Paul, Diane Wilson, Bill McKibben, Dahr Jamail, Lily Yeh, or so many others. It's daunting to oppose the forces that prefer war, daunting to oppose the forces that prefer economic hierarchy, daunting to oppose corporate media and the control that corporations have on the political process, but it's also exhilarating. And it's right.
21 Comments so far
Show AllAnd your point is? (Over and above the snark?)
I'm sorry my posting get put between Frank Cash's and yours. It dilutes the effect of your posting.
Like Howard Zinn (one of those portrayed), the artist has chosen what appear to be ordinary people who have had a positive effect on the country. That is the kind of history young people need to hear, not the blatherings of politicians or pundits.
I found his words extremely moving but to think that the USA is in the realm of the positive by considering that enlightenment and justice are on the menu (or table) is naive and slides into USA exceptionalism.
From Native Genocide, African Enslavement, Bloody thefts from the Hispanic World, Sweat Shops, WWI,Korea, South East Asia, Indonesia, Iraq and AfPak the USA has been overwhelmingly on the dark side. We are talking over 20 million lives sacrificed in USA initiated bloodshed ( USA did not initiate WWI).
First you must reach the mean before you can consider becoming positive.
Arthur Miller, but no Henry Miller. Ha!
A collection of portraits heavily weighted toward mediiocre politicians, second rate wind bags, and purveyors of very conventional wisdom.
Your indictment is wicked and inaccurate. Why don't you paint Henry Miller and send it to the artist... would THAT make you happy? I would hardly call the majority represented in these images "conventional" in their wisdom or approach to sharing it!
In fact, many of them are or have been anti-war activists. Which category (mediocre politicians, wind bags or purveyors of conventional wisdom) do they belong to?
Wow, as an artist myself I understand wanting to paint portraits. I'm doing it myself these days , mostly of those close to me though. I'm impressed!
Well written article and excellent portraits, thank you.
This is a great story and a much needed reminder that an individual **can** make a difference - because these are all great individuals, after all.
This list also brings to mind other names - such as Upton Sinclair. And seeing Frances Moore Lappé's name reminded me of John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America". And many more. Maybe there is hope, after all. (I know that's become a four-letter word. But these are still early days, and this word should not be allowed to go the way of other words such as "liberal" - and so must be rescued from the post-2008 abuse).
The portraits gave me another thing to think about. What if all of us could think like them and be courageous along their lines? I sometimes feel that we are living in a selfish world when heroes like them get ignored by most people. The ignorance stems from people who are afraid to get out of their conformed group(s) they have been conditioned into accepting and seeing the raw truth for themselves. I have often found myself at odds with how to approach terrible times. I usually believe that any cause will only come to fruition when done by more people together than by one hero and history has shown that to be the case. But I also realize that sometimes, it is necessary to step outside and see the truth beyond the obvious because that is the best way to realize what is happening behind our backs. I too have been attacked when I would bring up people like Rachel Corrie, Dr. Margaret Flowers, Ralph Nader, and plenty of true heroes at heart. Even some on the left would say "why aren't you stepping outside and joining them?", "why should I go with them and be a law breaker?", and all sorts of silly knee-jerk responses.
People know that something wrong is going on or even know what it is but they just don't have the motivation to step outside for once and listen to what they are trying to tell us. We can always debate about whether they're right or wrong but without listening to them, how will we know? When I think about it, I really do look at them as heroes despite our amorally ignorant majority vs those of us who are outnumbered and unable to get others to think like them. Those heroes had so much and for some of them everything to sacrifice amidst the majority who still believe that we can have our cake and eat it at the same time. It is just a sad truth that unlike heroes of the last century and before, most of the heroes of this millennium will be forgotten or mistakenly looked at as "trouble makers" all because few worked with them to bring their dreams and causes to life.
I was unexpectably moved by this article.
I agree that these people had/have courage, but I think it was/is more a matter of their having integrity.
The integration of thoughts, beliefs, and actions in the service of justice and humanity was/is central to their being and sometimes, maybe just on a bus ride home after a long, hard day, it is these things, coupled with tiredness and a sense of self-respect, which forces them to, rather quietly, take a stand.
Often a majority of USA ans believe or support what is best for life.
The problem is a majority does not follow their just convictions with meaningful actions to the logical conclusions or are easily swayed away from their innate humanity by propaganda
WHO TELLS YOU WHO YOU ARE?
Rev. William Sloane Coffin spoke at Stanford University
"The world is fill of gentle cowards who think their gentleness offsets their cowardice. It does not."
--William Sloane Coffin (1924 - 2006)
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"Who tells you who you are?"
Some people, Coffin said, need money to tell them who they are. Others need power to tell them who they are. He noted that Abraham Lincoln, while a member of Congress, declared that the war against Mexico was unnecessary and unconstitutional.
"It cost him his seat in Congress," Coffin said.
Similarly, some Vermont legislators who recently voted to allow civil unions between gay couples lost their seats in the fall, he said.
"But certainly it made my heart rejoice to see people whose ethical instincts were still higher than their political instincts," Coffin said. (The civil union legislation is now law in Vermont.)
Still other people need enemies to tell them who they are, Coffin said, adding that American anti-Communists lost their identity when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. And when President Lyndon Johnson announced in 1968 that he would not seek another term, Vietnam War protesters also lost their identity.
"Fortunately, Nixon came along," Coffin added, provoking laughter from the audience.
"Now, suppose you hear and you believe the prophet Isaiah," Coffin said, referring to Isaiah 43:1, when God says to Jacob: "I have called you by name, you are mine."
"Among other things, it means you never have to prove yourself," Coffin said. "God's love doesn't seek value; it creates it. It's not because we have value that we are loved, but because we're loved that we have value. So you don't have to prove yourself -- ever. That's taken care of."
However, Coffin said, you do have to express yourself. "Indifference to evil is violence," Coffin said, quoting Tolstoy. And Coffin said indifference to evil categorizes many of today's college and university graduates.
"The world is full of gentle cowards who think their gentleness offsets their cowardice. It doesn't," he said.
Compassion frequently requires confrontation, he continued, citing the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement.
"So don't let money tell you who you are. Don't let power tell you who you are. Don't let enemies and -- for God's sake -- don't let your sins tell you who you are," Coffin said. "Don't prove yourself. That's taken care of. All we have to do is express ourselves. It's difficult, but we're a lot more alive in pain than in complacency."
"If your heart is full of fear, you won't seek truth; you'll seek security," the Rev. William Sloane Coffin told a crowd of roughly 250 people seated in Memorial Church. "If a heart is full of love, it will have a limbering effect on the mind."
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On 25 May 1961 Rev. Coffin was a Freedom Rider on a Greyhound Bus. Bill was pulled off, harassed, and jailed in Montgomery, Alabama. As part of his jail processing the Sheriffs Office took a pair of mug shots. These are on the Internet. How I wish that Robert Shetterly would paint a reproduction of these 2 images - perhaps as a summary of his artistic mission. Thanks.
Trylon
There are two subjects I would nominate for Mr. Shetterley's undoubted talents:
1.Rose Bird (1936-1999), sometime Chief Justice of California, whose 'crime' in political terms was that she didn't tell the rabble what they wanted to hear, and so lost her job (quote: 'It's easier to be popular than to be just'), and
2. Sister Helen Prejean CSJ, author, Catholic sister and long standing opponent of state-sanctioned homicide.
Post deleted, scratch version.
"I resent very much and very deeply the implications of being called before this Committee, that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, that I am any less of an American than anyone else. - - I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs.
"I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung because singing is my business. But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.
"Where have all the flowers gone - long time passing
"I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out warning
"A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones
together. To every thing (TURN TURN TURN)
--Pete Seeger
In a sane society Pete Seeger would have obtained the Noble Peace Prize many times over.