Recently, Imo Nse Imeh an art professor at Westfield State University, created an art event, with a six foot tall painting of Trayvon Martin as the focal point. Other pictures encompassed in the event included Tamar Rice, Jordan Davis, and Emmet Till; to name a few. A unique purpose of this event was to sculpt Trayvon Martin into a boy, and a human being rather than a concept of police brutality, or racism. Through Imeh’s painting he portrays Trayvon as he was in youth and the disgusting portrayal of him in death. Imeh’s art event relates to The Whitney Plantation because through art both have found a way to showcase the lives of Blacks in America. The Whitney Plantation documents life as a slave and what happened when slaves were freed, while Imeh depicts Trayvon Martin’s life and what happened when he died. Trayvon Martin was in no way a slave as defined in the nineteenth century, but even today Black men in a sense are slaves to society. They are more likely to be sent to jail and receive longer sentences than their male counterparts. While, in jail they work for little to no pay, sometimes for companies that will not hire them when they get out. Trayvon Martin had all the constitutional rights so he had freedom, similar to a freed slave. Both, however, were perceived similarly by White Americans, and killed because of their skin color. Therefore, I think that the Trayvon Martin paintings and The Whitney Plantation display the same things. They are showing people and telling their story rather than the concept surrounding them, and I think the stories being told are the same: what it means to be Black in America, and truly free.
C-SPAN.org, www.c-span.org/video/?405212-1%2Fwhitney-plantation-slavery-museum.
Kaufman, Jill. “Public Painting Of Trayvon Martin Sparks Conversations About Racism OnCampus.” Vermont Public Radio, digital.vpr.net/post/public-painting-trayvon-martin-sparks-conversations-about-racism-campus#stream/0.