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In honor of Martin Luther King Day, activist artist Michael D’Antuono is releasing “The Talk,” his painting highlighting the inconsistent progress America has made concerning racial justice since Dr. King’s historic Selma to Montgomery marches. Here, he writes about the inspiration behind the powerful painting.

Martin Luther King made great strides for racial equality, and a speech that will always be remembered. We will always be grateful for his accomplishments and sacrifice. My concern is that, while things are better now than they were in the 60’s, some events of the last couple of years have made me wonder if some of Dr. King’s progress is being intentionally eroded.

On June 25, 2013, The Supreme Court gutted key parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1964 that Dr. King fought so hard to achieve. Declaring racism officially a thing of the past in America, they decided that voting rights of minorities no longer need protecting. That purely political decision by the conservative judges led to immediate changes in voting laws intentionally designed to make it more difficult for minorities to vote. Texas and other conservative states immediately disenfranchised black voters with stricter ID requirements, racially-gerrymandering districts and blocking grassroots get-out-the-votes efforts. It is safe to say that President Obama would have never been elected under these current laws.

I believe that before, during and after Dr. King’s time, the forces against racial equality have been more motivated by the need to maintain an economic class structure than actual racism itself. The powers that be merely promote racism as a tool to divide and maintain the status quo.

Those powers have created institutional racism. Lately, it seems justice isn’t even colorblind. Starting with the stand-your-ground laws and the Trayvon Martin case, more and more unarmed black kids have been killed without convictions. And in several well-known and lesser-known cases, unarmed black men and children have been murdered by police without even an indictment. While the talk white fathers like myself, have to have with their sons, begin and end with the birds and the bees, black fathers sadly have to talk about bullets and batons. I highly doubt that Dr. King would have dreamed that 50 years since his historic Selma to Montgomery march, African-American parents would still have to warn their young sons about the dangers of being black. That is what inspired me to paint “The Talk.” It’s time for us to work together to protect Dr. King’s dream and make it a reality.

Michael D’Antuono

Michael D’Antuono has been called “one of the world’s most controversial artists” by the UK’s ‘American’ magazine. Before becoming a fine artist, he created award-winning advertising campaigns and had a successful career as an illustrator. His artwork has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. 

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