From Stono to Now: The Fire This Time Black Resistance in American Art, 1739 - Present
From Stono to Now: The Fire This Time
Black Resistance in American Art, 1739 - Present
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.” — Frederick Douglass
From Stono to Now: The Fire This Time charts a powerful lineage of Black rebellion and creative defiance, presenting a curatorial arc that spans uprisings, visionaries, and visual declarations of freedom. This exhibition brings together works from multiple exhibited collections that speak to our shared legacy of protest, self-determination, and survival.
Featured works include:
Traci Mims’ searing depictions of Sojourner Truth, Fred Hampton, and Huey P. Newton, which honor the lineage of Black radical thought and leadership.
Jamaal Barber’s To Be Free and Underground Railroad, which visualize both the physical and spiritual journey toward liberation.
Najee Dorsey’s Gullah Jack and Google Robert Charles, brought to life through evocative photomontage and mixed media, reminding us that rebellion is rooted in American soil.
Kevin Williams and other contemporary voices challenge and expand the narrative, anchoring today’s resistance in the textures of daily Black life, love, and refusal.
“This is not nostalgia — it is testimony. A living archive.”
From sugarcane fields to city blocks, from coded quilts to bullhorn chants, From Stono to Now frames the art of resistance not as relic, but as a roadmap. As the fires of change continue to burn, it asks:
What does resistance look like today — and are we ready to carry it forward?
*Cover artwork by Bertrand Phillips and Kevin Williams*
