Source: College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Harriet Tubman Memorial Wall or “Let My People Go,” Photograph by Chicago Public Art Group
Harriet Tubman Memorial Wall or “Let My People Go,” Photograph by Chicago Public Art Group
This online exhibition explores a series of Black Power murals created in Detroit in the wake of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion. These murals, among the first of their kind in the United States, were created by the artists William Walker and Eugene Wade with the help of Detroit artists. They brought representation and feelings of pride to the Black communities of Detroit. The murals help us understand a time and place in which the city was reimagining itself while the political themes of the Black Power movement were showing up in art, especially public art.
In the year after Detroit’s Rebellion, the three major murals were created in neighborhoods where the event had unfurled: the Wall of Dignity (1968), the Wall of Pride (1968), and the Harriet Tubman Memorial Wall (Let My People Go) (1969). They were inspired by Walker and Eda’s work on the Wall of Respect mural in Chicago. Although the three Detroit murals were only visible for a few years and no longer exist, it’s important to recognize their history and how they positively impact local Detroit communities and identities.
This project was created between 2024 and 2025 by students in a University of Michigan first year seminar called “Art and Black Power in Detroit: A Public History Project,” with the guidance of Professor Rebecca Zurier and Research Associates Olivia Butts and Irma Maribel Guzman. Throughout this process we have sought to educate the public on the history of each mural. The students wanted to evaluate the role of art in communities while also making knowledge on the topic more accessible as a whole.
