Slavery mural in state building questioned

Metro Atlanta

Slavery mural in state building questioned

Photos: A Georgia Department of Agriculture mural showing slaves picking cotton as an overseer weighs their bags is raising eyebrows. The mural is prominent in the lobby of the building.

Security officer Phyllis Jones works in the main lobby of the Georgia State Department of Agriculture in downtown Atlanta. Behind her is one of a series of murals by artist George Beattie.

The 4-by-7-foot mural in the Department of Agriculture lobby depicts slaves picking and ginning cotton as an overseer weighs their bags. "My students and I were shocked that [the slavery mural] is so prominent in a government building," says Spelman College professor Bruce Wade.

Another mural in the series shows slaves working in the fields. The murals are among eight original paintings on two floors that were commissioned to create a visual timeline of agriculture in Georgia.

There are four murals in the lobby, including the one at the reception desk. Two represent Native American and Colonial times; two depict slavery.

The murals were commissioned for the building that was completed in 1956. They were painted by the late George Beattie, a noted local artist who was executive director of the Georgia Council for the Arts from 1967 to 1975.

Upstairs are more contemporary scenes: a farmers market; truck farming, with a black man and a white man working side by side; and researchers in a lab.

Brenda James Griffin, who retired in 2005 as the Agriculture Department's assistant commissioner of public affairs, said she looks at the murals and sees people who did what they had to do to survive and thinks about how far their descendants have come. But Spelman College students in Professor Bruce Wade's class felt the picture simply reinforces an image of blacks' subservience to white people.

Historic murals depicting stereotypical scenes of slavery or savage Indians have been debated elsewhere for years. The Department of Agriculture murals have escaped such public scrutiny, maybe because few people see them.

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Security officer Phyllis Jones works in the main lobby of the Georgia State Department of Agriculture in downtown Atlanta. Behind her is one of a series of murals by artist George Beattie.

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