1919-2017
Refusing to Remain Silent
Recy Taylor was a young Black wife, mother, and sharecropper from Abbeville, Alabama. On September 3, 1944, she was walking home from church when she was abducted and brutally attacked by six white men. Although some of the men confessed, no one was ever indicted. Two all-white, all-male grand juries refused to bring charges.
Taylor refused to remain silent. Her case drew the attention of the NAACP, which sent Rosa Parks to investigate. Parks helped organize the Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor, bringing national attention to the case and exposing the long history of sexual violence against Black women in the South.
In 2011, the Alabama Legislature formally apologized to Taylor for the state’s failure to prosecute the men who attacked her. Her story reminds us that truth-telling is an act of courage. Although the courts denied her justice, Recy Taylor’s voice helped strengthen the struggle for civil rights and dignity.
left – Mrs. Recy Taylor, 1944. Courtesy of The Rape of Recy Taylor, The People’s World/Daily Worker, and Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University. right – Henri Matisse, Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat), 1905. Oil on canvas. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, bequest of Elise S. Haas; photo: Glen Cheriton for SFMOMA.
Painting Strength in the Face of Injustice
In creating these portraits of Recy Taylor, I worked from a 1944 photograph that shows her standing with quiet dignity. The image is spare and direct. She faces the camera in a hat, her body still and her gaze steady. Because of the history connected to this photograph, her stillness feels powerful. It becomes a portrait of endurance.
The color inspiration came from Henri Matisse’s Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat), a painting known for its bold, unexpected color. I used Matisse’s approach as a way to bring new life and emotional force to Recy Taylor’s image. The vivid background, strong contrasts, and expressive color choices helped me move the portrait beyond documentation. I wanted to show Recy Taylor as a woman of courage and resolve, someone whose refusal to remain silent helped strengthen the long struggle for civil rights.