US artist Nia Keturah Calhoun is recording history in the making with her paintbrush. A mural in North West Washington DC honours Ketanji Brown-Jackson the 51-year-old judge who was confirmed by the Senate last week.
“I wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion while still honouring a really, really nuanced past,” Nia Keturah Calhoun said. “So a lot of the mural is very dark because it’s representing we had to get through a long period of oppression to get to a Black woman being on the highest court of the land. But there is a rising sun coming from the East and it’s shining directly on her because it’s a brand new day”.
The mural project is a joint effort between She Will Rise, an organization campaigning for a Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court, and No Kings Collective.
The local artist who created the design insisted to pay tribute to Jackson’s history and the history of African-Americans.
“If you look at the two green lines behind me, one represents the East coast of America and the other represents the West Coast of Africa and the journey that her and her family took figuratively and literally to get to where she is. She talked about going from segregation to the Supreme Court in one generation. And so there is a lot of sharp jagged shapes that represent the glass ceiling that she had to break through to get to where she is.”
The mural was inspired by the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s as well as African imagery.
The art piece is dear to D.C because Justice Jackson was born right there. When it is completed, the mural will show a young Ketanji Brown Jackson with her father who is a lawyer.
The first black woman who served as federal judge Constance Baker Motley will also be featured. The thousands of D.C residents will walk every day past the colourful mural.