Written by: Kadeer Wellington | June 14, 2022
Hello! My name is Kadeer Wellington, I’m a senior at Fisk University and I’d like to share with you my experience as an intern on the Joe Minter Project at the University of Alabama!
Joe Minter, a seventy-nine year old African-American artist, was the centerpiece of the project. We focused primarily on his latest, yet oldest, collection – The African Village. During my time as an intern, I learned quite a bit about not just his African Village collection, but also about himself as a person.
Concerning the artist, I can say that at first I didn’t really resonate with him as a person for a multitude of factors. Upon first listening to his interviews, I came to see Joe as bullheaded, uncompromising and even rude – and it initially took away from his positive qualities and the reason behind his beliefs. He’s been through a lot throughout his life and has determined that the only way to make his objectives and ideals reality is to be forceful, outspoken, assertive and persistent. He can usually either be found in his yard working on his African Village collection, at civil rights protests or gathering more material to use for his African Village collection. Essentially the work is never done for him as he constantly works on his collection. After a while he started to grow on me (with a few times that I still found irksome). I began to respect him, not only as an artist, but as a person as well. A person who’s been to hell and back and still holds firm in his beliefs and goals. He fights for the change he believes will allow the next generation of African-Americans to finally live without fear of racism, truly a respectable goal. What makes me respect him even more is that he doesn’t forget the Native Americans who were also affected by the forceful inhabitation of America’s newly appointed majority. Although his pieces were meant for the liberation of African-Americans, he hasn’t forgotten the Black-American and offers his prayers and efforts to their liberation as well.
I learned quite a lot about the inspirations behind his collection. It doesn’t take long to know that racism, civil rights and religion are paramount in the messages he wishes to portray in his art pieces. When you listen further to his interviews, you learn how deep his ties with those themes goes. In an interview, he requested the dictation of a message that spoke volumes to him.
“My blood is your blood, for the Lord thy God made only one God, but you deny this and you are not God. My heart is your heart for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My Heaven and Earth is your Heaven and Earth for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My day and night is your day and not for the Lord thy God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My children are your children for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My freedom is your freedom for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My joy is your joy for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My family is your family for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My history and culture is your history and culture for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My peace and mind of soul are your peace and mind of soul for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My future is your future for the Lord thy God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My compassion is your compassion for the Lord thy God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My human rights and civil rights are your human rights and civil rights for the Lord thy God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. My manhood is your manhood for the Lord they God made only one, but you deny this and you are not God. If you are not God, who are you? You are racism. You will not win, God will win.”
To summarize the text in a simple phrase, “Racism is the opposition to true equality.” Once you know the life that he’s lived and the experiences that he’s dealt with and overcame, the quotation hits even harder. The weight behind his ideologies was given greater gravity in the fact that he wishes for the youth of the new generation to rid the people of America’s unfounded hate towards a people – racism.
Joe’s art pieces are an interesting blend of his ideology of Freedom and African history. For instance, his knowledge on some of the African tribes of his time – the Igbo & Zulu – allowed him to create one of his pieces which were makeshift Zulu spears made from crutches. Aside from the ingenuity of his pieces, his incorporation of his family’s history of blacksmithing and the sheer magnitude of work he puts in and is on display, I personally didn’t find his works to be all that artistically impressive. Some of them I don’t believe can even be described as abstract. I won’t go into detail on the pieces I found least impressive, but I will speak on the ones that did catch my eye (outside of the signs that were literally made to do that). Not many caught my eye quite like his tributes and his history-motivated pieces, such as the Zulu spears, the slave ship and the tribute to his wife, Hilda. A lot of his pieces I wasn’t sure what the meaning behind them were or I just wondered what they were as a whole. Maybe that was just my untrained critiquing skills bearing their ugly head, but I honestly didn’t find much of them that awe-inspiring. But the meaning behind his art is the history of a people, the stories they’ve told and the resonance between a generation and their ancestral heritage and hardships. Look, listen and you just might understand the story behind his pieces.
I learnt a good bit about his experiences and life throughout my time thoroughly transcribing his interviews. Some of the things that come on TV were based on real events after all. In one of his interviews he spoke about how his father was taken to Memorial Park to be beaten by police officers, where they would often beat black people for fun. He spoke about the corruption of society and it’s always surprising how recently these things actually happened. It was interesting to learn that Joe knew John Lewis, an alumnus of Fisk University – the school that I currently attend. The way that he and his wife met, it was cute and interesting to hear about in his interview. I won’t talk about it here, so go check out the ‘Dedication to Hilda’ page on the website we made!
My experience working on what I did during the project wasn’t as interesting as what I learned from interning. My days mostly consisted of transcribing, video editing and captioning and assisting with web designing. We had visited his house during the time we worked, but he wasn’t there so the visit had to be cut short. I cataloged some of his work in my first two days working at the University of Alabama and quickly switched to transcribing and realized that both are similarly tedious and time-consuming, but it made sense to continue transcribing since someone had to cover that territory so that we could have them on hand for usable quotes later on in the project. The days would often blur together given the monotonous nature of my work, but the progress was evident in the second half of the program when we were able to begin video editing and web designing. Two weeks to lay the groundwork and two weeks implementing it. Rough, but it paid off. Thank you for tuning in to my blog, and the website. Hamba kahle! Good bye!