Jim Crow laws, lynching, or racial segregation – in spite of the 14th and 15th amendments, racial disenfranchisement defined the Reconstruction era that led up to a collective consciousness about a racially discriminatory society. Violence against BIPoC in the United States has not only become a part of its history but is deeply rooted in its culture, not yet chopped down by its stem. Efforts to counter this tradition of mistreatment and inequality have been faced by ignorance and police brutality consistently.
In 1963, when the civil rights movement reached its peak, photographer Charles Moore published photographs of a brutal disruption by police of a peaceful march, which were later adapted by artist Andy Warhol in his work “Race Riot”, acrylic on silkscreen. Despite all legal and social achievements of the Civil Rights movements, the oppression and systematic discrimination of BIPoC has persisted. When on May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was violently and viciously murdered by a police officer during an arrest, the video gone viral ignited the spark of the Black Lives Matter movement with protests worldwide showing solidarity with BIPoC suffering from racially motivated violence and institutionalized racism. Alike the photographs of the civil rights movement, BLM protests in the U.S. have been brutally disrupted by police executing extreme violence and abusing their power by the usage of rubber bullets and tear gas.
As an homage to Warhol’s work and to raise awareness for the ongoing mistreatment of BIPoC, we created our line depicting photographs of the Black Lives Matter movements similar to Moore’s pictures. Change is not caused by a black square on your Instagram feed, therefore we will donate our profits realized by this project to four organizations fighting against racism:
- Mapping Police Violence
- Black Lives Matter
- Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V.
- ISD-Bund e.V.
This project is sponsored by Weekday.