JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The only things Lillian Young had at her disposal for a new art project were words.
It inspired her to launch a unique exhibit in Michigan in 2022 called “The Problem with Archives: The Runaways.”
That exhibit is now featured in Jacksonville at the Ritz Theatre and Museum through May.
Young used words from advertisements and notices that described at least 100 different runaway slaves in the 1800s to create portraits of what she believed the people might have looked like.
“I wanted to give these people a chance to be able to be seen,” she said.
Young found all of the documents through a database called “Freedom on the Move.”
Young used the words to carefully craft and illustrate what each one of these people might have looked like.
She said she did it to give them a face and dignity.
“I do not know what any of these people look like,” Young said. “I am just going off of the words that are given in the runaway ad to use and create what I think the people looked like.”
Young said these people are more than just historical figures.
“They were a living, breathing human who went through so much, and we do not have any information about that,” Young said. “All we have is maybe a couple of sentences that just say, ‘I want my property back. This is how I see them. Give them back and I will pay you some money.’”
Young does not believe any of the people featured in her exhibit were from Florida.
She showed News4JAX an advertisement listed for a woman named Hannah and explained her thought process for creating her portrait.
“Hannah’s [advertisement that was published] is the most distinctive just because of how she was described as having [a] mischievous feel,” Young said. “Black women were forced to wear head wraps because their hair was too seductive for white men. She was in that space and time where that would have been an active law.“
Young said Hannah’s painting is one of her favorites.
Revisiting history
History is within the walls of the Ritz Theatre and Museum and hovers around the streets of the LaVilla neighborhood where the theater is located.
Joyce Wilcox knows that history all too well, as she grew up in the neighborhood. She lived across the street from the theater.
Wilcox said she even experienced segregation in the early 1960s by not being able to go to see a movie in downtown Jacksonville because of the color of her skin. Instead, her only option was to go to a neighborhood “movie-house.”
Now, Wilcox gives tours inside the Ritz Theatre.
“It has developed as a passion because [of] what I learned growing up here and what I see as an adult,” Wilcox said. “I am 68 years old. I’ve been here a long time to tell the stories of unheard of people. They mentioned [James Weldon and John Rosamond Johnson] a lot. But it took a whole big community of African-American people to build up the LaVilla community. To see the courage and the bravery and the excellence in the time of segregation and hatred and racism.”
During a brief tour of the theater, Wilcox explained the hardships many people faced to ensure equality. She said they were brave.
“They were people that their own city, a nation, did not think they were equal,” Wilcox said. “There were still hangings and hardships. But the people here that gathered together here, they made an impact on not only Jacksonville, the LaVilla neighborhood, and helped grow this community up, but they also helped America.”
The men and women featured in the Ritz Theatre and Museum’s newest exhibit faced that same hatred and racism.
Young said she wanted to honor them and give them the respect they did not receive while alive.
“I hope people really understand that these were real people,” she said. “When you look at history, especially the 1800s, we are so far removed that it seems that it’s just a story and that these are just characters, and it does not have an impact.”
But Young said that’s not the case.
“It does have an impact. These were people. Real people who lived real lives, who all wanted the same thing, which was just to have a freedom and were willing to risk themselves to obtain that," Young said.
Young told News4JAX the exhibit started in Michigan while she was a graduate student at Michigan State University. It has since been on display in other places, including Texas, South Africa and now, Florida.
