Young Lions

BY AKIN OGUNDIRAN, Ph.D.

Exhibition Essay from Young Lions: A site-Specific Installation by John Bailly at the MDC Frances Wolfson Gallery, August 1, 2002 – September 26, 2002.

Young Lions is an exhibition that represents and interprets the historical realities of all human struggles against persecution, oppression, poverty, war and all forms of social upheaval and aggression. It is not about a place, a people, or a time but about the collective will of human spirit to seek freedom and justice. This exhibition challenges us to remember, to ponder, and to strive for a better world. With the deft and daring strokes of the brush, Mr. John Bailly releases potent colors and images that are both alluring and awakening, with multiple layers of meanings that confront the past head-on and that challenge the young lions of today to be their brother's and sister's keeper. With raised arms and fists suspended in the air, the men and women, boys and girls, in these paintings tell a story of unity, determination, and love in the face of difficulties. History has taught us that whenever the people come together, the walls of oppression come tumbling down.

The title of the exhibit derives from an alias of the anti-apartheid youth movement in South Africa. One of the three portraits in this exhibit is of an architect of that movement. Steve Biko (1946-77), f ounder and martyr of the Black Consciousness Movement in Apartheid South Africa. Expelled from medical school for daring to speak against the social injustice of the apartheid regime, he became a champion for the social upliftment of the urban poor and created a powerful philosophy for the empowerment of the Black South Africans. He died on 12 September 1977 after brutal torture from the men of the Apartheid police force.

Jeanne d'Arc, b. 1412. At the age of seventeen, she led the military resistance to the English invasion of France in the Hundred Years War. She saved her nation from foreign rule but lost her life to betrayal. On May 30, 1431, she was burned at the stake in the Rouen marketplace. Beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV, Jeanne d'Arc is a patron saint of France and a French national heroine.

Francois Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803). General and Statesman and an architect of the Haitian Revolution. Born into slavery, Toussaint L'Ouverture used wisdom, charisma, and hard work to convert the 1791 revolt of the enslaved people of St. Domingo into Haitian Revolution. He was tricked into capture by the French army, and he died in a medieval fortress high in the Jura Alps of the French-Swiss borders in 1803. His battle cry for liberty and human dignity has been a source of inspiration to oppressed peoples all over the world.

Steve Biko, Jeanne d'Arc, Toussaint L'Ouverture: children of different time and place but citizens of the world nonetheless. Theirs was not a manifest destiny to lead or rule, but they listened to their inner spirit and thrust themselves into leadership. They defied social hierarchy and ideology of oppression, and scorned the principle of "each one for him/herself." They had the choice not to act against the social injustice going on around them. Yet, they chose the rougher road, and worked for the emancipation of the majority. The struggles claimed their lives but they gained a soul for humanity. In the end, they remade their world.

Akin Ogundiran is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at FIU. His focus is in African history, archaeology, and anthropology. He is currently working on a project that focuses on the impact of the Atlantic commerce on social and cultural transformations in the Bight of Benin ( West Africa). The project is titled "Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in the Bight of Benin." The outline of an aspect of the research agenda is recently published in International Journal of African Historical Studies (see publications below). This essay accompanied the exhibition Young Lions: A Site-Specific Installation at the Frances Wolfson Gallery, MDC in 2002.

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