Artwork Detail

In 2019, the Board of Supervisors introduced a motion directing the Women and Girls Initiative to collaborate with the Department of Arts and Culture to commission artists to create commemorative artworks for the Centennial Celebration of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Six artists, including Andrea Monroe, Amy Smith, Clarence J. Williams III, Laura Vasquez Rodriguez, Moses X Ball, and Ragni Agarwal, were selected to design artwork for this project. The resulting artworks reflect a diversity of women and perspectives and highlight themes such as empowerment, civic engagement, resiliency, and the right to vote. Each artwork will be installed at various facilities throughout LA County for the public to enjoy and inspire residents to vote. The artworks were also reproduced as a limited run of posters available to the public and County departments and three designs were selected to be reproduced as limited-edition library cards and bookmarks. Born on May 17, 1920, in Napoleonville, LA, Mary London was three months old when the 19th Amendment was ratified. While the Amendment acknowledged “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” it did not guarantee every woman the right to vote. In Mary’s state of Louisiana, poll taxes prevented the majority of Black citizens from voting in elections until the 24th Amendment declared these taxes unconstitutional in 1964. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Clarence J. Williams III captured this portrait of Mary outside her home in Kenner, LA, where she survived through Hurricane Katrina, illuminating her strength and resolve.

Clarence J. Williams, a native of Philadelphia, has spent more than two decades pursuing the truth with his camera. Widely known for his unyielding determination and sacrifice to his art, Clarence has been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography (as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times), the Robert F. Kennedy Photojournalism Award, and the National Association of Black Journalists’ Journalist of the Year award. He recently completed work on a public art commission for Metro for the new stop at Second and Broadway Streets, which is planned to open in 2022. He chronicled New Orleans’ recovery from Hurricane Katrina in a long-term project supported by the Open Society Institute. Additionally, he taught and served as the Head of Photojournalism at the University of Southern Mississippi.