Public Art
Dedicated to Progress
Celebrating the history of labor and civil rights movements throughout New Jersey and the US, this piece honors the trailblazers and influential organizations who dedicated themselves to the improvement of worker rights and civil liberties.
Dedicated to Progress is a public art piece installed in downtown Trenton, as part of Isles Reflecting Trenton Project. This piece can be seen on 232 E. State Street, Trenton, NJ, along with historic data and additional photos of the site. Reflecting Trenton is a research & art project that combines local history with local art, vintage with contemporary, and archives with the passerby.
Below is a historic key created with the research and source material used to inform my piece and the movements it depicts.
Suffragist Marches –late 1800s – late 1920s
The women’s suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy.
The battle for woman’s suffrage was in full force in both Britain and the United States in the early 1900s. Reporters took sides, and in 1906, a British reporter used the word “suffragette” to mock those fighting for women’s right to vote. The suffix “-ette” is used to refer to something small or diminutive, and the reporter used it to minimize the work of British suffragists.
Many suffragists were arrested and imprisoned for demonstrations and staged hunger strikes while in custody. The first woman to refuse food was Marion Wallace Dunlop, a militant suffragette who was sentenced to a month in Holloway for vandalism in July 1909. Dunlop's strategy was adopted by other suffragettes who were incarcerated. It became common practice for suffragists to refuse food in protest for not being designated as political prisoners, and as a result they would be released after a few days and could return to the "fighting line".
In this silhouette group, is Allison Turnbull Hopkins of Morristown, N.J., the New Jersey state chairman of the National Women’s Party and a member of the NWP executive committee in 1917. Hopkins was arrested July 14, 1917, for picketing, sentenced to 60 days in Occoquan Workhouse but she was pardoned by President Wilson after three days.
It is important to note that the majority of suffragists were white women coming from wealthy backgrounds. This socio-economic status gave them a safety net to protest for the freedom to vote, however inclusivity was not a manicure of the women’s suffragist movement.
Feb. 9th, 1920 New Jersey is the 29th state to ratify Suffrage amendment. On August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising “all American women” and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
However, Leah Nahmias, director of programs and community engagement for Indiana Humanities and spokeswoman for the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, noted that not all women gained the right to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment. Asian women, for example, could not vote until 1952, and Native American women were not considered citizens of the United States and could not vote until 1957.
Source: Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1920), 361-62.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/suffragistvssuffragette.htm
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage
Pottery Strike – 1925 & 1926
After the invention of the casting process and it’s introduction in Europe, and American manufacturers realized they had to adjust themselves to new conditions. To offset this, factory owners suggested to the men a wage reduction, telling them this was necessary if the American trade was to be saved. The only alternative, they declared, was the general introduction of machine methods and the employment of “unskilled” labor. Deceived into a sense of false security by years of work with good wages and misled by visionary and ill-informed leadership, the rank and file of the men refused to consider the suggestions of the manufacturers. A strike resulted - a mere picnic period, some of the workers regarded it. Members of the unions turned deaf ears to the pleas of such men as Frank H. Hutchins, their national vice-president, to listen instead to the unwarranted claims and hollow promises of radical leaders.
This led to a determination on the part of the manufacturers to ignore the unions and their demands. Machinery was installed to do the work of the artisan and outside labor was employed, some of it black labor from the South. The result was that the unions were largely disorganized, most of the potters lost their jobs or went back to work at lower wages under less desirable conditions.
This was a strike in which capital came out ahead, although as in all strikes, it was a heavy loser. Strikes are like war; no matter who wins, everybody loses.
Union labor in Trenton never sustained more serious blows than it did in these several great pottery strikes and unwise leadership was largely to blame. Other strikes have been called, of course, but none of them has resulted in lasting disaster for the city.
Steel Strikes – late 1800s – 1950s
The birth of the Industrial Revolution bred filthy and dangerous working conditions in many factories—conditions employers were slow to address.
The first U.S. workers compensation laws were enacted in 1911. A year later, the National Council for Industrial Safety, formed to collect data and initiate accident prevention programs. The Council estimated that 18,000-21,000 workers died from workplace injuries in 1912, a startling realization. Prior to that, there was no official record keeping.
However, many factories continued to be highly dangerous workplaces. Steel factories were especially dangerous, see this exert below from an article on Carnegie Steel Mill. Indeed, flames, noise, and danger ruled the Carnegie mills. "Protective gear" consisted only of two layers of wool long-johns; horrible injuries were common. Wives and children came to dread the sound of factory whistles that meant an accident had occurred.
"They wipe a man out here every little while," a worker said in 1893. "Sometimes a chain breaks, and a ladle tips over, and the iron explodes.... Sometimes the slag falls on the workmen.... Of course, if everything is working all smooth and a man watches out, why, all right! But you take it after they've been on duty twelve hours without sleep, and running like hell, everybody tired and loggy, and it's a different story."..
Due to the dangerous working conditions, low wages, and profit driven leadership ideology many factory workers formed unions and fought fierce, at times violent battles with factory owners for better working conditions, pay and more. Unions were highly undesirable for factory owners and stakeholders, and many companies went to great length to stifle any attempts for workers to unionize. Members would organize mass strikes or walk outs in order to re-negotiate term of employment or other issues, leaving the factories empty and work to freeze. Intimidation was common to keep factory workers from reentering work until a better deal was struck for all members.
12-hour days and six-day weeks lead to less alert workers and many accidents. Gradually, though, work became safer and less exhausting. Shorter work days and, later more safety training and equipment, made work in the mills and mines much safer after the 1930s.
Labor unions played a big part in making these changes. They didn’t just bargain for higher wage, but also shorter hours, safer workplaces, paid healthcare, disability insurance, and much more.
See the news headlines below.
“ PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 21 -- The regional War Labor Board here ordered tonight that the 2,700 striking employees of the Trenton (N.J.) plant of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company return to work immediately and directed that the company and the United Steel Workers, CIO, proceed with settlement of the dispute through established grievance machinery. “
https://www.bls.gov/wsp/publications/annual-summaries/pdf/work-stoppages-1959.pdf
https://info.basicsafe.us/safety-management/blog/3-turning-points-in-the-history-of-workplace-safety
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/690968?mobileUi=0&
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carnegie-steel-business/
Civil Rights Movement – Late 1940s – Late 1960s
Detail of civil rights protest section.
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a decades-long campaign by African Americans and their like-minded allies to end institutionalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and racial segregation in the United States.
This movement had its roots in the centuries-long efforts of enslaved Africans and their descendants to resist racial oppression and abolish the institution of slavery. Although enslaved people were emancipated as a result of the Civil War and were then granted basic civil rights through the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, struggles to secure federal protection of these rights continued during the next century.
Through nonviolent protest, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s broke the pattern of public facilities’ being segregated by “race” in the South and achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for African Americans since the Reconstruction period (1865–77). Although the passage in 1964 and 1965 of major civil rights legislation was victorious for the movement, by then militant Black activists had begun to see their struggle as a freedom or liberation movement not just seeking civil rights reforms but instead confronting the enduring economic, political, and cultural consequences of past racial oppression.
In this group is a silhouette of Edith Savage Jennings, a prominent member of a sit in orchestrated at the Capital Theater. At 13 years old, Savage helped to integrate the Capital Theater in Trenton, New Jersey, when she refused to sit in the balcony, which was the designated seating area for blacks. Savage's first job was in the sheriff's office, where she continued to speak out against discrimination.
Black Panther Party Movement – 1966
Black Panther Party was founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality.
In this grouping, Black Panther Party national chairman Bobby Seale (left) and defense minister Huey P. Newton are seen in the stop right behind a sign that reads “Black Panther Party”.
In addition to challenging police brutality, the Black Panther Party launched more than 35 Survival Programs and provided community help, such as education, tuberculosis testing, legal aid, transportation assistance, ambulance service, and the manufacture and distribution of free shoes to poor people. Of particular note was the Free Breakfast for Children Program (begun in January 1969) that spread to every major American city with a Black Panther Party chapter. Eventually the Panthers began to align themselves and lobby for wealth redistribution heavily rooted in Marxist doctrine.
Notwithstanding the social services the Black Panther Party provided, the FBI declared the group a communist organization and an enemy of the U.S. government. President Hoover devoted the resources of the FBI, through COINTELPRO in a protracted program against the Black Panther Party. COINTELPRO used agent provocateurs, sabotage, misinformation, and lethal force to eviscerate the national organization. The FBI’s campaign culminated in December 1969 with a five-hour police shoot-out at the Southern California headquarters of the Black Panther Party and an Illinois state police raid in which Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed. The measures employed by the FBI were so extreme that, years later when they were revealed, the director of the agency publicly apologized for “wrongful uses of power.” By the 1980’s, the activities of the Black Panther Party all but ceased.
After returning from exile in Cuba, Newton was killed in a drug dispute in August 1989, perishing in an alley in West Oakland.
In 1990 Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee, a former Black Panther Party member, sought to resurrect the organization when he formed the Black Panther Militia in response to the neglect of his community by local politicians and business leaders. The militia inspired other chapters and eventually became the New Black Panther Party, under the leadership of community activist Aaron Michaels. Many activities of the New Black Panther Party clearly replicated those of the original Black Panther Party. At the same time, however, the New Black Panther Party embraced a staunchly cultural nationalist orientation.
Women’s March – 2017
The Women's March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. It was prompted by the fact that several of Trump's statements were considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive to women. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. The goal of the annual marches is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, disability justice, reproductive rights, the environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers' rights and tolerance. According to organizers, the goal was to "send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights".
Edith Savage Jennings makes another appearance as the keynote speaker at the Trenton Women's March.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women%27s_March
https://mercerme.com/7500-participate-in-trenton-womens-march-photos-and-videos/
Drivers Licenses for All – 2018
The Drivers Licenses for All march spanned 300-miles across New Jersey in support of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants. Starting in Newark, the march ended with a rally in Trenton on June 11. Marchers walked 9 to 10 miles each day in areas with large immigrant populations. Advocates chanted "licenses yes, promises no" as they made their way through the city's streets.
The walk was organized by Movimiento Cosecha, a national coalition with members in various states who have organized sit-ins and marches on behalf of undocumented immigrants.
The New Jersey Safe and Responsible Driver Act, was reintroduced in 2018 by Assemblywoman Annette Quijano of Union county. It proposed to extend driving privileges to people who are living in the country illegally, as well as to the homeless, veterans and other populations that may have trouble meeting the requirements of the state Motor Vehicle Commission's Six-Point ID verification program to obtain a New Jersey driver’s license.
On Thursday, Sept. 6th, more than 500 New Jersey residents rallied in front of the Trenton Statehouse to demand expanding access to driver’s licenses to more residents in the state. Speakers at the rally included faith leaders, advocates, and residents who need to drive but are not able to get a driver’s licenses. Residents who are most marginalized are most affected by not being able to get a driver’s license, including undocumented immigrants, seniors and victims of violence including immigrants with insecure status such as DACA recipients and TPS holders. Families and communities are negatively impacted when community members not able to access a driver’s license because parents are not able to drive their children to school or to doctors’ appointments. At the time, more than half a million residents in New Jersey were unable to drive safely because of outdated policies that prevent access to driver’s licenses.
December 17th, hours after hundreds of advocates staged an overnight protest on the Statehouse steps to call on lawmakers to pass the bill, the measures cleared both the state Senate and Assembly, but not without staunch opposition.
Allowing residents without legal papers to obtain a drivers license has been in the sights of advocates and undocumented immigrants for more than 15 years. The Assembly passed the bill (A4743/ S3229) 42-30- and the Senate 21-19. Supporters chanted “Si, se pudo!” (Yes we can!) and “Licencias, ya!” (Licenses now!) outside the Senate chambers.
In December 2019, Governor Phil Murphy sign the new law, making New Jersey the 14th state to provide driver’s licenses to residents without legal status.
George Floyd Protests - 2020
The George Floyd protests are an ongoing series of police brutality protests that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of international responses to the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man who was killed during an arrest after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis Police Department officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested.
Floyd's death has since then spawned worldwide protests against police brutality, police racism, and lack of police accountability. On May 30, 12 states called up the National Guard, and at least 12 major cities imposed curfews that weekend. By June 14, protests had extended into a third week after Floyd's death in many cities, accompanied by calls to reform and defund police departments throughout the United States.
Detail of George Floyd Protest signs.
Solidarity protests over Floyd's death quickly spread worldwide. Protests in Canada, Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa have rallied against what they perceived as racial discrimination and police brutality, with some protests aimed at United States embassies.
The protests calling for justice were tethered to the greater Black Lives Matter Movement.
#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.
