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By Shauna Stuart | The Birmingham Times
A new art exhibition at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute examines the past and future of America as the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary.
Artist Willie Williams had a lot of questions during the 2024 presidential election.
He noticed the tense moments and eyebrow-raising comments, including when then-candidate Donald Trump told Christians during a speaking event in Florida that they would “never have to vote again” if they voted for him that November.
“So, I thought, ‘OK, voting rights is really on the chopping block right now, and the plan is in motion to really take us back 60 years,’” said Williams, who owns Studio 2500 Fine Art Gallery in North Birmingham.
Another red flag for Williams was Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page “right-wing blueprint” for America designed to take effect during a second Trump administration. When information about the agenda started circulating more frequently on social media in 2024, Williams learned more about the policies in the manifesto, including recommendations to remove Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
So, Williams started thinking about his next art exhibition — one that would illustrate his feelings about the state of the nation.
“As an artist, personally, I always want to try to reflect the times– in the words of Nina Simone,” said Williams. “I felt compelled to reflect those changes that were happening and my own feelings and opinions about those changes.
He started listening to Fannie Lou Hamer’s 1964 speech at the Democratic National Convention. Seated in front of an all-white delegation in Atlantic City, Hamer passionately delivered her testimony about poll taxes and other obstacles white voting officials used to prevent Black people from voting. She vividly described being fired from her job as a sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation and being brutally beaten in jail for trying to help Black people register to vote.
“I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave?” Hamer asked fervently. “Where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hook because our lives have been threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?”
Hamer’s voice, said Williams, kept stirring in him.
“Her words really compelled me,” said Williams. “Her question really confirmed that I needed to go in the direction of using my art to challenge America.”
Williams decided the topic of his next art show would challenge viewers to take an honest look at America’s scars and triumphs. The result: “Is This America,” a rolling art show curated to highlight the 250th anniversary of the nation.
The first iteration of the show debuted at Studio 2500 in 2025, featuring work from six artists.
The second iteration of the show is housed at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
On view in the Odessa Woolfolk Gallery until July 18, the exhibition features paintings, mixed media, sculpture, and video. Williams says the show honors Woolfolk (“A historical figure in the house that she built,”) and also commemorates the 10-year anniversary of Studio 2500.
The exhibit also comes at a fitting moment — a new era in the battle for voting rights as
Southern states attempt to redraw voting maps, primarily in districts representing minority voters. The move, reports the Associated Press, is part of a push by President Donald Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.
Williams followed the rapid redistricting timeline that started in April– the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, striking down both a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana and a landmark civil rights law that increased minority representation in Congress — a move that politicians and voting rights activists say guts Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Artist Willie Williams’ “Is This America?,” is a new art exhibition at BCRI. (Amarr Croskey, For The Birmingham Times)He watched as Southern states, including Alabama, clamored to call special legislative sessions to redraw voting maps. He saw the clarion calls for protests and rallies to speak out against the sessions and read about voting rights activist Dee Reed being removed from the Alabama State House chambers. He watched closely as community leaders and concerned citizens rallied together for All Roads Lead to the South, the national day of action in the cradle of historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches to mobilize a new voting rights era.
In early June, the Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use a 2023 voting map favoring Republicans in this year’s elections, blocking an earlier lower court ruling that the redistricting plan intentionally discriminates against Black people.
Williams, 30, never thought he’d see this happen in his lifetime.
“My parents were born into it,” said Williams. “They were born into the fight when it was happening 60 years ago, and now I’m coming into adulthood and the fight has restarted. That’s the most interesting part about this whole time right now.”
He likens this time to Freedom Summer, the 1964 Mississippi campaign of meetings and protests designed to increase Black voter registration.
“60 years ago was Freedom Summer and the time has returned,” said Williams. “We’re marching again. Here we are in 2026 protesting and fighting in Alabama for districts and for voting power.”
Homage to Fannie Lou Hamer
This iteration of “Is This America” is an exhibition of work by Williams, his father, Willie Williams Sr. and a collaboration between poet Candace Green, and artists Jasilyn Snow and Nikos Dimarco.
The exhibit uses painting, sculpture, photography, video, and mixed media to explore themes of citizenship, democracy, and freedom in America
This version of “Is This America” also pays homage to Fannie Lou Hamer. A television screen in the exhibition showcases black and white footage from William’s 2025 visit to Hamer’s gravesite in Ruleville, Mississippi.
Nearby hangs Williams’ piece “Fannie’s Echo,” a mixed media work on felt. Silver and red tinges of paint cover a black felt background, and Williams placed a gray illustration of feet in the bottom left panel of the piece. The image is two-fold, he says. The feet can represent the trauma of lynching — how the terrorists who lynched Black bodies kept body parts as artifacts. Feet, says Williams, also represent movement.
“If you cut our feet away from us, you’re taking away our power.”
The centerpiece of the exhibition is “Lord Knows,” Williams’ multicolor acrylic paint portrait of Hamer’s face. He describes the image as solemn, but contentious.
“It was important to show her presence in the space, but also show her experience as a Black woman in America, because it’s written all over her face. When you see her face, you’ll see the trials and tribulations that she went through in the Jim Crow South,” said Williams.
Prayer Changes
Another standout piece is “Prayer Changes,” Williams’ colorful acrylic interpretation of the famous black and white photograph of civil rights leaders Rev. F.D. Reese, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy kneeling before being arrested during a protest march to the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama. Reese, a minister, educator, and civil rights leader, served as president of the Dallas County Voters’ League and was one of Selma’s “Courageous Eight” — a group of activists who continued to hold meetings to discuss protesting voting injustices, even after a court injunction banned marches and meetings. It was Reese who wrote a letter on behalf of the Dallas County Voters’ League to invite Dr. King to return to Selma to assist with the voting rights movement.
Williams says the painting is an ode to Reese and other lesser-known foot soldiers of the voting rights movement.
“We like to talk about King and Shuttlesworth and Abernathy, but (Reese) is an unsung hero,” said Williams. “A lot of priming had to be done with the people in Selma to get them ready for what was to come. And he was part of that league that did that. So I didn’t want to forget his voice and his significance to the movement.”
“Is This America?” is an exhibition of work by artist Willie Williams, his father, Willie Williams Sr. and a collaboration between poet Candace Green, and artists Jasilyn Snow, and Nikos Dimarco. The Williamses are pictured with Deanna “Dee” Reed. (Amarr Croskey, For The Birmingham Times)“I Felt Like Something Had Been Stolen from Me”
Willie Williams Sr. is a product of the Black Belt. Born in 1959 in Marengo County, he was part of the region’s early school integration efforts. He also remembers when Martin Luther King Jr. traveled through Eutaw and Marengo County while headed to Selma and Marion.
An architect by trade, Williams’ work in “Is This America?” is crafted from digital images on wood panels. Two of the panels, “Unwritten” and “Inside America” are inspired by his childhood.
“I came up in a time when my grandfather couldn’t vote until 1965 and he couldn’t write. So when I was able to go with him to vote when I was seven, eight, or nine years old, I would always write an ‘X’ for his name,” said Williams.
Like his son, Willie Williams Sr. also observed the rapid redistricting timeline and the blow to Section Two of the Voting Rights Act.
“I felt like something had been stolen from me. All of the gains that we made,” said Williams Sr. “I knew all of my grandparents and great grandparents. So I felt like those things that were restricting them are now restricting me.”
“Is this the America that I had hoped for my children, for my grandchildren? No,” Williams Sr. continued. “Is this the reality of America? Yes.”
Historic examination and a devotion to Black history and social justice has always been a premise of Williams Jr.’s work, from his acrylic painting “4 The Little Girls,” which depicts colorful images of the four girls killed in 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in 1963 to his Arc of Justice sculpture, a nod to Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1965 address at the Alabama State Capitol.
To Williams , historic preservation is one of an artist’s greatest roles. And as America approaches its 250th birthday, artists who chose to depict history have a responsibility, particularly as President Trump signs executive orders to remove historic exhibitions and overhaul the messaging at cultural institutions around the nation.
“There needs to be truth right now in a society that holds up falsehood, especially in media that’s trying to erase Black history primarily, and that’s trying to erase the humanity of certain groups of people,” Williams said. “Artists now… we need to be bold and courageous and tell the truth and forget about doing the pretty stuff … and making the pretty art. There needs to be some truth. It’s not always pretty. There is some rawness that comes with that. And we got to be willing to go there.”
Artist Willie Williams had a lot of questions during the 2024 presidential election, which inspired “Is This America?,” a new art exhibition at BCRI. (Amarr Croskey, For The Birmingham Times)
