Man with Foot Soldier T-Shirt -

While this project shares the story of the ongoing struggle for the vote, it also celebrates the Foot Soldiers who make up the movements for change. A man in Selma, standing by an old sedan with T-shirts spread across the hood, inspired this focus. Hoping to sell the shirts, he held one up. It read, “Foot Soldiers Never Die. The 50th Anniversary. They marched for me and they didn’t even know my name.”

Seeing this, I thought about all the ordinary people who, generation after generation, have struggled to make the US better – the Foot Soldiers. They helped abolish slavery, marched for women’s suffrage, demanded labor unions, or got arrested over the vote. Also the millions who recently challenged the US with Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and the Dreamers. And, yes, Foot Soldiers do march for us, as the T-shirt said, even though they don’t know our names.

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Foot Soldiers for Justice

Stephanie Solomon | Selma, Alabama and Washington DC, United States

In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act with Shelby County v Holder, resulting in dramatic rollbacks of voter rights. Under this cloud of voter suppression, in 2015, I gatherred with thousands of others in Selma to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Later that year, I joined activists who marched from Selma to DC on America's Journey for Justice to protect the vote. Foot Soldiers for Justice portrays these events.

The work captures intimate street portraits of everyday people, the Foot Soldiers, as they honored those who struggled in the past for voting rights, and who build the voter movements of today. It also depicts renowned leaders.

Foot Soldiers received two Puffin awards. It is archived by the US Department of the Interior National Historic Selma to Montgomery Trail Museum, has been in galleries and colleges, and was exhibited at the Selma Interpretive Museum.

Importantly, since 2015 voter suppression is worse. However, movements are fighting back. As a democracy project, Foot Soldiers for Justice aims to inspire this fight. 

Deep gratitude and appreciation goes to:

Dan Harmon for all his artistic support, editing, patience, and love. Without him none of this would be possible.

Ana Osling and Mo Alsaedi Web Design

Reality Tours and Global Exchange, and to my travel companions in Selma, Andrea Lyman, Ann Pruden, Robert O’Sullivan, and especially Kirsten Moller, our guide and teacher.

Dr. Andrea Lyman for her companionship on the D.C. trip.

Audrey Mandelbaum, Curator

Sam Harmon for his ongoing encouragement and help.

Jimmy Aristizabal, Studio Assistant

Susan Vogelfang

Karen Schuler

Nancy Hollander

Dale Franzen

Charlotte Hildebrand

Antioch University Los Angeles, especially the Liberal Arts Program.

PROLOGUE

I am a multidisciplinary artist. My interest in photo documentary is not as an outside witness, but as a mutual participant in struggles for social justice. Living in a multiracial democracy, I believe it benefits all of us to see that the vote is accessible to all persons who are eligible to vote, and I feel it is my obligation to participate in justice issues regarding elections. In doing so, I try to be conscious of myself as a Caucasian and of the history of the White gaze in the photography of difference and struggle. I see Foot Soldiers for Justice as photo documentary, a democracy project, and arts activism.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

I was worried when the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act with Shelby County v Holder in 2013. Sadly, my apprehensions were justified. Soon after the decision, state legislatures across the U.S. began a severe rollback of voter rights. That’s why in 2015, under this ominous cloud of voter suppression, I gathered with thousands of others in Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50thAnniversary of Bloody Sunday and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Later that year, I joined activists on the last miles of America’s Journey for Justice, a march from Selma to Washington D.C., to protect civil and voting rights. My black and white images, with the aesthetic from the 60’s, document these two events. The project is called Foot Soldiers for Justice.

Foot Soldiers is the recipient of two Puffin Foundation awards. It is archived by the US Department of the Interior National Historic Selma to Montgomery Trail Museum and has been shown in galleries and colleges. Importantly, it was exhibited at the Selma Interpretive Museum at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The images are home.

The work began when I joined the tributes and actions in Selma, and when a strange feeling came over me. It was as if a muse were on my shoulder urging me to photograph. No, there weren’t shouting protestors. No demonstrators and police. Instead, I found myself within the 80,000 who reverently traced the steps of earlier Foot Soldiers and formed a swell of diversity cohering in peaceful purpose. So, I began to take photos, capturing the determination and dignity of the marchers.

Since then, especially in the isolation of the pandemic, I went back to the photos and reflected on them. I was fighting a feeling of helplessness in the face of the Right’s successful dismantling of our vote and my fearfulness given their growing vigilantism, menacing of electoral officials, and intimidation of non-partisan volunteers at voting sites. When in 2021, with Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Supreme Court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, I saw the door open to even more restrictive voting laws. Then, with the constant retelling of the “Big Lie” about stolen elections, things got worse. Far too many Americans became tolerant of the anti-democratic assaults on the vote. The growing authoritarianism of the Republican Party and reactionary judges on the Supreme Court finally rendered the situation dire. It’s become clear. Our very democracy is at stake.

Nevertheless, within this scenario of doom, I was strenuously looking for hope. And I found it. Movements to protect the vote, like they did in the past, are fighting back. They are at the local level registering voters and at state legislatures urging expansion of voting rights. They are battling in court, suing over violations of voting laws. They are demanding Congress pass federal legislation to assure access to the vote. I have rewritten some of the text for the project to support these groups and their efforts and to inspire resistance. In this way, Foot Soldiers for Justice is more than documentary. It is an arts-activism work. And, in the broadest spiritual sense, through photos and words, I hope to affirm Martin Luther King’s steadfast belief that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Resources

Brennan Center for Justice, Voting Rights and Elections   https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/voting-rights-elections

Danielle Allen, "The Forgotten Founder,"  Atlantic Magazine, March, 2021

Bishop Dr. William Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement Is Overcoming the Politics and Division of Fear, (Beacon Press, 2016)

bell hooks, Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, https://www.berea.edu/appalachian-center/appalachian-center-home/faculty-and-staff/bell-hooks/

On the bell hooks quote: https://kaalratri.com/2015/12/16/free-minds-raging-hearts-and-hopeful-spirits/

Representative Terri Sewell, https://sewell.house.gov/contact/full-biography 

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New Press, January, 2010.

 

Stephanie Glass Solomon

www.facebook.com/footsoldiersforjustice

Websites: Footsoldiersforjustice.com

                 Stephaniesolomon.com

Biography

Stephanie Solomon is a multidisciplinary, White, artist activist whose lifetime of art advocates for progressive social change and allyship. Her ongoing project, Foot Soldiers for Justice, earned two Puffin Photography Awards. Documenting the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday and 1965 Voting Rights Act, with the NAACP’s Journey for Justice, the work is archived by the US Department of the Interior National Historic Selma to Montgomery Trail Museum, and was exhibited at the Selma Interpretive Museum, in galleries, and colleges.

Working in theater and music, Stephanie did two oratorios with Maestro Kent Nagano: producing Manzanar an American Story on anti-Asian racism, and co-writing and producing American Voices: Spirit of Revolution. She wrote plays on aging and gentrification: two were produced in NY, Blue Heaven and Moving On, with another, Being Moved, given the Mario Fratti/Fred Newman Award for Political Playwriting and a reading in N.Y..

As writer/producer/singer her feminist works performed on stage and in cabarets include: Jazz, Gender and Justice, addressing woman’s issues intersecting with social class, mass incarceration, and the environment; The Liberated Chanteuse on women and cancer, and Intimate Illusions about love. She is also the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships.

Born in NY, raised in Fla, married, with a son and daughter-in-law, she lives in CA, has an MA, MS, and is Professor Emeritus from Antioch University, LA.

Exhibits of Foot Soldiers Images and Video

2018

Get Out the Vote: Foot Soldiers for Justice

This was an exhibit of 48 photos from the collection Foot Soldiers for Justice and a showing of the video.
When: October 1  to November 6, 2018
Where: Antioch University Los Angeles, 400 Corporate Point, Culver City, CA. 90230
 

Spoken & Unspoken, A National Art Exhibit

Images from Foot Soldiers were on exhibit in this juried show.
When: January 5 through February 4, 2018
Where: Santa Cruz Art League, Santa Cruz, CA

The Woman’s Caucus for Art,“ART SPEAKS! Lend Your Voice

The video Foot Soldiers for Justice was shown. It was chosen from a national call and juried selection process.
When: Opening Reception:Thursday, February 22, 2018 during the 2018 National Conference of the Women’s Caucus for Art with Closing Reception March 10th, International Women’s Day.
Where:“ART SPEAKS! Lend Your Voice”exhibition, Arena 1 Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.

2017

US Department of the Interior National Historic Selma to Montgomery Trail Museums, Selma Interpretive Center, Selma, Al.  New Galleries Opening Event

Eighteen images from the collection Foot Soldiers for Justice were on temporary exhibit. The work was part of the opening of two new galleries and permanent exhibits in the Historic Museum. Representative Terri Sewell and Selma Mayor Darrio Melton attended the opening, along with many of the Foot Soldiers who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965. Stephanie was honored to have been in attendance, as well. In the future, images from Foot Soldiers for Justice will travel the two other Historic Trail Museums in Montgomery and Lowndes County. Photos from the entire collection will be archived by the Museums for future generations.
When: February 23, 2017
Where: US Department of the Interior National Historic Selma to Montgomery Trail Museums, in Selma, AL. at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Black History Month

When: February 24, 2017
Where:Photos from the Foot Soldiers collection, along with the slideshow video, were displayed at Antioch University LA in Culver City, as part of their Get-Out-The-Vote efforts, and acknowledgement of Black History Month.

2016

“Three Rings and Two Parties; The Election Circus.”

The Foot Soldiers for Justice video was included in the political exhibit.
When: November 2 to December 7, 2016.
Where: The Wiseman Gallery, on the Rogue Community College campus, Grants Pass, Oregon.

News and Media/ Foot Soldiers and other recent activist work

Please note: In 2015, I wrote “An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton Because #Blacklivesmatter.” It was published in Reader Supported News. I added it here as it is relevant to the topics being discussed in 2021. It addresses the racial-class divide and Blacklivesmatter. Please consider going to the RSN site and reading the article.

Reader Supported News: An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton September 2015 by Stephanie Glass Solomon

August, 2020,  On Ageism - Stephanie’s photo Alone Together in the Pandemic finished 2nd in the Aging As Art competition. Her image, titled "Zedenka, Holocaust Survivor", was also chosen for exhibition. The award is by the Southern California Council on Aging.

The award-winning photo can be seen online at:https://www.coasc.org/events/aging-as-art/winning-photographs/

Photos were shown at John Wayne Airport, the Bowers Museum and the Newport Beach Library in Southern California.

November, 2018  Stephanie received her second Puffin Foundation, LTD, Photography Award on July 18, 2018. The award supported the “Foot Soldiers for Justice” exhibit about the Right to Vote, at Antioch University Los Angeles. Running from October 4 to November 8, 2018, the exhibit was part of “Get-Out-the-Vote” efforts for the 2018 mid-term elections.

October 4, 2018, Stephanie was featured in The Easy Reader, both the newspaper and online. The article by Ryan McDonald is called, “Hermosa Woman Captures Legacy of Bloody Sunday.” The online article can be found at:easyreadernews.com/hermosa-woman-captures-legacy-of-bloody-sunday

 

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