The Extended Family

One Book One Northwestern, 2020–21

This artwork was selected in response to themes in Northwestern’s community-wide reading of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014) by Bryan Stevenson.

Just Mercy paints a picture of the ripple effects of incarceration by showing how entire families are directly impacted by the imprisonment of a loved one. In chapter 5, "On the Coming of John," Bryan Stevenson conveys the devastation of Walter McMillian’s family through his account of conversations with McMillian’s wife, children, and siblings. In this chapter, Stevenson also recognizes the despair felt on the part of the Black community in Monroe County after McMillian’s wrongful conviction.

This linoleum cut by Margaret Burroughs, The Extended Family, is not a work about the criminal justice system, but the artist calls attention to the humanity and connectedness of her subjects in a way that is reminiscent of Stevenson’s descriptions. The viewer recognizes the figures both as individuals, each having distinct appearances and personalities, and as members of tight-knit group, physically close together in a shallow space. There is a sense that the part depends on the whole. In addition to Burrough’s work as an artist, she was also a prison reformer. Known as co-founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History and the South Side Community Art Center, Burroughs was also an educator who taught writing and visual arts to incarcerated people in prisons in Stateville and Joliet Correctional Centers in Illinois.