I am so thrilled to announce that my cover art is featured on the brand new issue of America's longstanding liberal voice, The Nation magazine! It's an idea I've been planning for the better part of six months and I've been drawing it for the past three months... Image and explanation below the fold...
...so the idea was Barack Obama being sworn into office, surrounded by civil rights figures from history. I then thought it would be appropriate to have the late, great Thurgood Marshall do the honors. I then expanded the idea to include civil rights of all kinds (Chief Joseph, Cesar Chavez, Gandhi, Mandela and Biko, Susan B Anthony, Harvey Milk, etc.)... Of course, it can't be all-encompassing. There's not enough pages to accommodate everyone who has helped bring about this wonderful moment. But I wanted to include as many deserving figures as possible. I had my personal favorites: King, Malcolm X, Barbara Jordan, Chief Joseph, Stephen Biko, Henry David Thoreau... many well-known figures appear, but along this journey I found a lot of others that I didn't know too much about... Bayard Rustin, Fred Shuttlesworth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Still, Thomas Garrett and Samuel Burris.
Here it is:
I hope this cover can be used as a teaching tool. I certainly learned a lot creating it. Pick up the issue when it hits the stands and go through the names... there was amazing work done throughout history, paving the way for Tuesday's wonderful moment. ...and knowing a bit more of how we got here will make this inauguration all the sweeter.
HAPPY PRESIDENT OBAMA DAY!
UPDATE: Wow... the (really?) Rec List?!! THANKS so much to all of you for your wonderful comments. I'll try not to let my head swell to the size of a blimp. (I don't even know if I'm doing this update thing right...) Seriously: THANK YOU!!
UPDATE 2: Thank you again for all the beautiful comments. Made my day... Made my year! and thanks to Chasemonster for pointing out that The Nation has dropped The Key to the figures on their website:
http://www.thenation.com/...
Cheers!