One month, one painting : February and Black History Month in the US

Imagine that you are six years old and it’s your first day in a new school. You are wearing a special outfit. (…) Official-looking men in suits are there to escort you to the building. A wild, screaming crowd is gathered outside. Could it be a parade? Your teacher greets you warmly, but where are your classmates? Why are you the only student in the room? Why is there no one to eat lunch with you or to play with you? You are little and confused, but your mom has told you to behave, so you are brave—you don’t cry.”

“This is what actually happened to Ruby Bridges on her first day at William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. Ruby was the first African American child to attend the school after a federal court ordered the New Orleans school system to integrate. The public outcry was so great that white parents withdrew their children from school so they would not have to sit with a Black girl. Ruby spent an entire year in a classroom by herself.”

“Artist and magazine illustrator Norman Rockwell is known for his idyllic images of American life in the twentieth century. But his work had a new sense of purpose in 1960s when he was hired by LOOK magazine. There, he produced his famous painting The Problem We All Live With, a visual commentary on segregation and the problem of racism in America.
The painting depicts Ruby’s courageous walk to school on that November day. She dutifully follows faceless men—the yellow armbands reveal them to be federal marshals—past a wall smeared with racist graffiti and the juice of a thrown tomato. The canvas is arranged so that the viewer is at Ruby’s height, seeing the scene from her perspective.

Rockwell’s painting, created a few years after Ruby made her fateful entrance at school, was produced at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It is now considered a symbol of that struggle.”

Source : Excerpt from https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/visual-arts/norman-rockwell–the-problem-we-all-live-with/

 

(Teaching English as a foreign language, for educational purposes only)