"Jomo Kenyatta"	"Harriet Tubman"	"Muhammad Ali"

Traveling exhibit honors black leaders

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See the exhibit View Watson's estate

June 1, 2000
Web posted at: 9:50 a.m. EDT (1350 GMT)

(CNN) -- An art exhibit that celebrates the influence of African and African-American leaders is returning to the United States next month. "Pan-Africanists," by Jamaican artist Barrington Watson, is to be on display at the Schomberg Museum in New York from mid-June to the end of August.

The exhibits features 17 leaders, each united by the Pan-Africanist philosophy of liberation, unity and solidarity of Africa and African people throughout the world.

Barrington Watson

"(It's the) idea of projecting people of African descent who have been outstanding in their principles, philosophies and their actions," Watson said.

They include abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman; NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois; civil rights-era activists Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcom X; boxer Muhammad Ali; singer-actor Paul Robeson; and African political leaders Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.

"Once people of African descent see the images and the dignity these people project, they will become role models," Watson said.

Watson's mission to unite Africans in art began 30 years ago, when he was a visiting professor at Spelman College in Atlanta. The U.S. civil rights movement inspired him to use his artistic talent to promote racial equality through art.

"The Pan-Africanists"

The paintings in "Pan-Africanists" took five years to do. Most of them were executed on his 400-year-old estate outside Kingston, Jamaica.

The results stunned Africana culture expert Joseph Jordan.

"It's fascinating how he was able to bring them to life," he said. "When you look at the paintings you feel them as people -- no longer just static images in a book."

An accompanying book, "The Pan Africanists," was released the week of May 15 in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Jamaica. The foreword is by Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations.

The collection is to launch on the African continent after the New York showing, with visits in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Other U.S. engagements still to be confirmed include Washington and Chicago.

Correspondent Stacey Wilkins contributed to this report, written by Mary-Jo Lipman.

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Barrington Watson

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