Why is the mural still important today?

Awareness of Rhode Island’s History of Slavery

When it comes to people’s knowledge of the history of slavery in Rhode Island and New England, levels of awareness vary widely – from not knowing there was slavery in the northern states, to a deep understanding of the integral nature of slavery to the state’s economic and social history. Many projects and institutions have been working over the last several decades to increase the visibility and knowledge of the history of slavery in Rhode Island, including the Slave Medallion project and the 1696 Historical Commission, among many others. Still, a general lack of awareness is apparent, as evidenced in part by the 2020 statement by Rhode Island’s House Speaker saying he was unsure that slavery existed in Rhode Island. At the Center, many visitors who view Baker’s mural only then learn of Rhode Island slavery. On a statewide level, there is a rising level of support for better covering Rhode Island slavery in school curriculum, and the 2020 referendum that resulted in the state changing its name.

Exhibit Navigation
1: Introduction
2: Ernest Hamlin Baker
3: Great Depression & New Deal
4: Treasury Section of Fine Arts
5: Baker’s Commission & Research
6: Slavery in Southern Rhode Island
7: Baker’s Artistic Process
8: The Finished Mural
9: Wakefield Post Office
10: Why the Mural Matters
11. Share Your Thoughts
12. Further Reading

Rhode Island’s Name Change

Advocacy for expanding school curriculum covering the history of slavery and people of color in Rhode Island has gained renewed strength following the summer of 2020. Widespread racial and social justice demonstrations and activism spurred lawmakers, community leaders, and institutions of all types to more closely examine ways that they could address the legacies of slavery and racism in American society. In addition to introducing legislation to address school curriculum, state lawmakers in Rhode Island proposed a ballot measure to remove the word “plantations” from the state’s official name because of the word’s association with slavery. The same ballot measure was put to a vote in 2010, and voters chose to keep the word in the name by a margin of 77% for to 22% against.

Rhode Island’s official state name, and before the American Revolution, the name of the colony, was “State [and previously Colony] of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Providence Plantations refers to a tract of land that early settler Roger Williams acquired from the Narragansett Indian Tribe on which large agricultural operations were established. Although it is unclear whether or not any enslaved people ever worked on the Providence Plantations, the word “plantations” was used widely in the colonial Americas. (For example, the Plimouth Plantation, long celebrated as the site of the “First Thanksgiving.”)

Rhode Islanders Debate What “Plantations” Signifies

The vast majority of New England and Rhode Island’s “Plantations” and large agricultural estates were places of enslavement or indenture for Black and Indigenous people; this association with the painful history of forced servitude was the primary argument for removing it from the state’s name. Rhode Islanders had many other arguments for and against striking the word: some believed that the word signified the legacy of Roger Williams and was not associated with the legacy of slavery; some believed that the word was inextricably tied to slavery and should be removed to help heal that painful legacy; others acknowledged the word’s association with slavery, but believed that the removal would not help heal the legacy of slavery in the state, and would in fact help to erase the already poorly-understood history; still others thought the state’s name was simply too long-winded.

The outcome of the 2020 ballot measure was that voters chose to remove the phrase “and Providence Plantations” from the state’s name by a margin of 53% - 46%. It is notable that the voter turnout in 2020 was 45% higher than the voter turnout in the 2010 election.

Debates About Controversial WPA Murals

Rhode Island’s name change was part of a much broader national conversation about words, names, statues, monuments, and artwork that are connected to legacies of slavery and racial oppression. Because many WPA murals depict historical events related to these themes, they have often been the subject of scrutiny when communities are debating what those legacies are and how they are memorialized.

The most prominent example of a debate involving WPA murals in the past few years has focused on a series of murals in George Washington High School in Oakland, California. The murals depict different aspects of the life of George Washington, including that he owned slaves and was responsible for the deaths of Indigenous people. These scenes were intended to be critical of a historical figure who is traditionally idolized in the teaching of American history, but some students and community members found even the depiction of enslaved people and violence against Native Americans to be disturbing and offensive images, especially for high school students. Click here to read a 2019 New York Times article about this controversy.

Debates like these have happened many, many times over around Depression Era murals that depict scenes like this, and similar questions are commonly raised. Are the artist’s depictions supporting racist ideas, or is the artist attempting to accurately depict racial oppression that is part of our shared history? If we cover or remove the murals, does it actually help to heal the harms of slavery, racism, and violence, or are we covering up that history by making that knowledge less accessible to those who it was meant to educate? Is public art an appropriate or evocative way to communicate these histories, or is the educational benefit outweighed by the emotional harm that disturbing images may cause? Are we erasing the impact that the New Deal had on our society, or has the mural done what it was meant to do, and is now outdated and irrelevant? Who is advocating for the mural to be removed—or stay—and why? How should communities make the decision to remove or keep a mural?

These are difficult questions to grapple with, and often the debates in communities can become heated and contentious. But healing the harms of a difficult history usually requires some difficult conversations to happen, and our public art can help spur that progress.

Banner Image: Baker’s mural as published in LIFE Magazine, January 27, 1941