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"'...Go Home' depicts an African American youth with a furrowed brown and darkened, deep-set eyes. He is clearly distressed by the writing on the wall behind him. Powell was in the first class to integrate Central High School in Kansas City in 1955 following the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision. According to the artist, the black students were forced to endure both verbal and physical assaults: 'Going to school for the first year was like going to war.' Powell considers the "n" word to be one of the three most powerful words in American history, highlighting the fact that racism, in various forms, has been a constant in our past. The youth's enlarged hands suggest his latent power and that of his race.
"Born in Kansas City, MO, Powell is a graduate of Lincoln University, Jefferson city, where he studied with the late James Dallas Parks. He taught art in the Kansas City school district for thirty years."Label
2022, Whose America?
Lonnie Powell’s painting, ...Go Home, is inspired by his experiences following the Brown v. Board ruling in 1955. Before this ruling, schools were segregated; Brown v. Board of Education maintained that the “separate but equal” Jim Crow law was unconstitutional.
Powell’s class at Central High School in Kansas City, MO, was one of the first schools to integrate. According to the artist, “Going to school for the first year was like going to war.” The painting represents the hateful treatment African American’s faced. The young man’s facial expression appears exhausted and pained over the slurs scrawled on the wall behind him.
Text by Liz Schmidtberger, Washburn student