The Mural Today

Contemporary Reactions and Reflections on the Mural

In the course of preparing this website we interviewed a number of people in and around Rhode Island about their ideas. Two of our respondents are university professors who have made important contributions to the study of Rhode Island's history and public monuments and who remember seeing the mural in its original setting at the Wakefield Post Office. We felt that some of their recollections and observations would be well worth sharing with you.

Joanne Melish is Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and makes her home in southern Rhode Island. She reflects on the impact the mural had on her and also on other local people using the Wakefield Post Office:

"In 1982 I moved to a house right around the corner from the Post Office where the mural was installed, and I saw it every time I went there to mail anything. At that time I was already doing independent reading about New England slavery, so I knew right away what the mural was depicting. I went back to school at Brown in 1983 to finish my B.A., abandoned long before, in order to get into graduate school to work on this topic. The mural just added to my motivation.

In the early 1990s, when I was working on my dissertation, I conducted an experiment one winter. I went into the Post Office at random times, pointed out the mural to people waiting in line to mail their packages, and asked them innocently what it was about. Every white person except one looked at it bemusedly and said something about how strange it was to see a Southern slavery scene in a New England Post Office. The one exception was a little old white lady who was a member of the local historical society. She said that the mural depicted the Narragansett plantations, showing crops and other products being produced for export to the West Indies . She didn't mention the large
black men in the mural; she didn't mention the word "slavery"; it was as if these men were invisible. On the other hand, every adult person of color said something like "That's slavery! We had slavery down here (meaning in South County)!"

Ronald Onorato is Professor of Art at the University of Rhode Island. He writes about the impact of the mural in its original space and suggests why it is important for the study of public art, specifically public murals in Rhode Island.

"My first impression of the mural is that it overpowered its space since it was a very cramped entrance lobby to the small Wakefield post office. Its forms and visual energy were larger than life but were somewhat compromised by the poor lighting and its time-darkened surface.

I think it is a very important work for Rhode Island in that it is the only such work in the state that addressed large social economic and historical issues. The other mural projects were descriptive of place (showing: a URI library scene, the 38 hurricane, Apponaug cove) or were more fanciful with the large program of children's nursery rhyme characters on the walls of the then Children's Library Room in the Providence Public Library. This one had a serious intent and a kind of monumentality to go along with that intent. Its title keys you into the various vignettes on the canvas but also serves to announce its historical, "scholarly" basis. The title may also have been a way for Baker to suggest to the federal agency that this was the kind of local history image that they desired. These are some of the ways that I introduce the mural to my students."