On April 3, 1957, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Brandeis University as part of a lecture series on race relations.
Fifty-one years later, a traveling art exhibit has been set up at the university honoring the slain civil rights activist and those who were killed during the civil rights movement.
"I think it's fabulous," said Monique Gnanaratnam, director of the Intercultural Center at Brandeis. "A group of us were able to sit down and look at the history at Brandeis and have the opportunity to fold that history into our campus and celebrate a time that Martin Luther King Jr. stood on this campus, and not too many people know that."
The Icons of the Civil Rights Movement exhibit features 16 paintings portraying the movement.
"A colleague of mine had seen this particular series at an event somewhere in New England," Gnanaratnam said. "She saw this and was really interested to see if we wanted to bring this to campus."
She said the exhibit will be ready for the start of the school year.
"Along the way this program basically developed into something great with individuals from all parts of the University coming together to put this together," she said. "It's pretty awesome that here it is, the 40th anniversary of (Martin Luther King Jr.'s death)."
Artist Pamela Chatterton-Purdy said her exhibit "connects the dots" of her life.
"At age 23 my first job was at Ebony Magazine," she said. "That September, the Birmingham, Ala., 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed. I had to do layout art work for Ebony Magazine on that crisis."
She added that her marriage to a Methodist minister "is another point that connects the dots." Purdy said later on in life she adopted multi-ethnic children.
"After adopting an African-American son, he was three, we adopted an Asian-American child. His father was a black American soldier and his mother was Vietnamese," she said. "Adopting black children was like putting a lightning rod on top of our house for racism."
Purdy said she lived in Springfield and Winchester, where her children became victims of physical and verbal racist attacks.
The final points to be connected came in 2004, when Purdy traveled through the South to research the civil rights movement.
The journey would eventually have her standing near the railing at the former Lorraine Hotel in Memphis where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
"I always wanted to do a series ... I knew very clearly that 2008 was the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. So in September 2007, I took a gold leaf workshop in New Hampshire," she said. "Then I started the first (painting) in October 2007. There were 16 paintings done in 3 1/2 months. I finished the last one two days before Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in 2008."
The works are painted images adorned with gold leaf on wood panels.
"Some of the things I used I found at the dump," she said.
One painting is the shape of one of the windows at the 16th Street Baptist Church.
"I put broken pieces of stained glass and I gold-leafed them into the painting," Purdy said.
Purdy said her goal was to create a living memorial to "very ordinary people who did extraordinary things."
"I do not want them forgotten," she said. "As a visual artist, this is my way of expressing the sacredness of the lives that were lost."
Purdy said her intention was to have the exhibition travel from one place to another from January to the end of 2008.
"It has done so," she said. "It's going to Springfield next at Trinity United Methodist Church, where it will be on exhibit for a week. After that it goes to Bangor, Maine."
Gnanaratnam said she expects a range of reactions from those who view the exhibit.
"This art is going to have a different meaning for anyone that sees it," she said. "The civil rights movement is still rooted in who we are today in some way, shape or form."
Gnanaratnam said she and a group of students plan to have a panel discussion about Purdy's work later this month.
A grand opening reception has also been scheduled for Sept. 3 at 4 p.m. in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall in the Goldfarb library at Brandeis University.
For more information on the exhibit, visit www.chatterton-purdyart.com.
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or jgilbrid@cnc.com
