Confrontation on the Bridge, from the portfolio An American Portrait 1776–1976

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.

In the mid-1970s, Jacob Lawrence was among over thirty prominent artists invited to contribute to a print portfolio in recognition of the United States Bicentennial. For An American Portrait, 1776–1976 artists were asked to reflect on American history since 1776. In his artwork, Lawrence depicted an event that took place only about a decade earlier, when in March of 1965 activists organized the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in an effort to fight for the voting rights of African Americans. The print is aligned with other artworks by Lawrence, known for representing important moments in African-American history in his distinctive style of abstract modernism. Lawrence portrays the moment when the marchers are confronted by the National Guard on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. While the Guard is represented by a single snarling, vicious dog baring its teeth on the lower left, the marchers on the right are characterized by their unity. In Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson addresses the legacy of this event through the lens of Mrs. Williams (chapter 9, "I’m Here"). Mrs. Williams shows up at the courthouse to support Walter McMillian at a hearing, but she is unable to enter because of the presence of police dogs, which conjured up traumatic memories of her experience in civil rights protests some thirty years earlier. It is a poignant moment in the book that helps us understand the legacy of fear and intimidation imposed by the state on its citizens.