The Legacy Museum acquisition of “Rooted” by Traci Mims

The Legacy Museum acquisition of “Rooted” by Traci Mims 

This month, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery is recognizing Claudette Colvin in visual fashion through its acquisition of “Rooted”, an artistic tribute to the civil rights pioneer by Traci Mims, the talented multi-genre artist represented by Black Art in America. Mims’ 18 x 24 inch, color reduction, varied edition woodcut print on paper features the image of a young Colvin emblazoned on the t-shirt of an African American teen, the artist’s daughter. Founded in 1989 by widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author and subject of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, EJI provides legal representation to those illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused while incarcerated. In 2018, the nonprofit organization opened the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to address the tragic legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation.

This acquisition is the latest in a series of accomplishments by the Atlanta-based Mims including the recent purchasing of her "Flowers for Their Stripes" by Black billionaire Sheila Johnson for her Salamander Hotels & Resorts; the acquisition of the same piece by Coca Cola headquarters in Atlanta; and two other works collected by the popular television crime drama “Raising Kanan” for its fourth season. The award-winning artist and former art teacher is skilled in a variety of artistic forms including painting, printmaking, drawing, quilting, sculpture, and graphic design. Though her forms vary, Mims’ work is connected by her affinity for culture and social justice.

The history that inspired a movement –

In July 1951, a 16-year-old African American named Jeremiah Reeves was discovered engaging in consensual sex with a white woman, Mabel Ann Crowder, in her Montgomery, Alabama home. Soon after, Crowder claimed she’d been raped by the high school student and Reeves was taken to Kilby Prison where police strapped the terrified teen to an electric chair and threatened to electrocute him unless he falsely confessed to all of the local rapes of white women reported that summer. Reeves was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury that deliberated less than 30 minutes. 

Upon Reeves’ claims of innocence and coercion, the Montgomery NAACP secured national civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall and, in December 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction, ruling the trial judge had suppressed evidence of the coerced confession. Sadly, the case was subsequently retried as Reeves was executed on March 28, 1958 at age 22. 

But four months after the initial Supreme Court reversal, inspired by her support for Reeves’ case, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in March 1955 for refusing to yield her seat to a white woman on a Birmingham bus. While Colvin later became a plaintiff in the case that ultimately led the Supreme Court to desegregate the city’s transportation, it was her NAACP mentor Rosa Parks who famously proceeded to repeat Colvin’s protest later that year and spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Parks, a seasoned activist along with her NAACP peers, well knew that Colvin—who was unmarried and pregnant during court proceedings—would have presented a public relations nightmare for the growing movement. To this day, Colvin, who is still alive, has received relatively little recognition for her pioneering efforts.