Voting Rights are Human Rights, asserts a new mural in Downtown Raleigh by prominent artist Shepard Fairey.
The wheat-pasted mural is part of a larger national campaign. Raleigh is one of eight cities selected for a printed mural for a bigger message to amplify Black lives.
Raleigh artists Taylor White and Sarahlaine Calva with Raleigh Murals Project installed the large mural on the brick exterior wall of the Cortez Seafood + Cocktail restaurant in Glenwood South earlier this week.
The national campaign launched on the day of the Strike for Black Lives and also includes a large Voting Rights are Human Rights mural in Milwaukee, one month before the Democratic National Convention.
Even if you don’t recognize the name Shepard Fairey, you know his work. The artist designed the iconic Hope poster of Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.
About the collaboration: Branded Arts, one of the national partners along with Big Bowl of Ideas, reached out to Taylor about installing the mural for the project.
“Seeing this as a tremendous opportunity to do right by Shepard and Raleigh, I agreed to help and I brought in Jed to help produce the install, as well as Sarahlaine Calva to assist,” Taylor said. “We’re very honored to have been able to contribute such a meaningful work.”
About the design, from Shepard Fairey’s Obey Giant site: “The Voting Rights are Human Rights print is a collaboration with photographer Steve Schapiro who documented many of the important civil rights protests in the 1960s. …
Voting rights and racial equality were the focus of a mass movement toward a more just society in the ’60s. Unfortunately, insidious racism, which never went away, has given way to more overt racism, and voter suppression, often targeting people of color and students. Democracy needs to work for everyone.
Voting rights are human rights, and we need to make every effort to give equal voting access to everyone of voting age regardless of race or economic circumstance. It is essential that people vote!”
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