Atlanta Series: Atlanta Children, 1981

“As a result of feelings that were getting out of control, I began making art that I called wild. The works was about the slain Atlanta children. I wanted to recapture the mothers’ pain when they identified their dead children.”~Faith Ringgold

In 1981, Faith Ringgold completed a series of very raw works in reaction to the brutal murders of at least 28 children and young adults in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981. One suspect was later convicted of two murders, while the rest remained unsolved. The cases were reopened in 2019.

James Baldwin, in his 1985 book The Evidence of Things Not Seen about the Atlanta murders, stated what seemed obvious: The murders were investigated negligently because all the victims were black and poor. Ringgold’s feeling of rage is evident in this group of striking works.

Satin, wire, rope

15 x 40 x 30 in.

Atlanta Children is a mixed media sculpture composed of a group of 22 small figures each placed onto small black pedestals. 20 smaller figures represented the children (the number of children murdered at the time), and the two slightly larger figures behind them represented their parents.

The figures are made of cans that contain newspaper accounts of the atrocities as bodies and of pebbles as heads. Both items are wrapped in black satin, tightly bound with wire. Each of the smaller child figures is tagged around its neck with one of the dead children’s names and a photo. Their faces are turned up, with open-mouthed tiny faces painted on them in white and green paint, and black curls of hair attached to them. The parent figures are also made out of cans and stones. Bound in green ribbon, their mouths are open as if they are screaming and they are wearing buttons with the inscription “Save Our Children.”