Don't Let the Children See (March on Washington, 1963)

Don’t Let the Children See (March on Washington, 1963)

16 x 20 x 1.5 inches

Acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas

$650

Price includes shipping within continental U.S.

The March on Washington in August 1963 was 250,000 strong, one of the largest civil rights gatherings of its time, and it was nationally televised. My parents believed the coverage was inappropriate for children. I was banned from watching television that day.

This painting revisits that moment through memory. The child is me in 1963. A television set surrounds my head, a nod to John Baldessari, suggesting how media mediates understanding. The parents sit in the background, obscured by static, protective yet complicit in controlling what is seen. The title, Don’t Let the Children See, reflects the tension between protection and censorship, between shielding innocence and withholding truth.

This painting is part of a conceptual diptych: Generational Witness 1963/2024 and includes Don't Let the Children See (March on Washington, 1963) and March on Washington Today, 2024. 

In 1963, during the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 250,000 people gathered in an orderly, unified call for civil rights. It was nationally televised. In my childhood home, I was not allowed to watch the television that day even though the adults gathered to watch it. The march was something children were shielded from: too political, too charged, too adult.

In Don’t Let the Children See, the child, myself, stands with her back to the television. The parents sit obscured by static. The work questions whether protection becomes censorship, and whether controlling access to information shapes civic memory. Sixty one years later, in March on Washington Today, 2024, the children are no longer shielded, they are present. The signs are handmade. The clothing casual. The causes numerous and overlapping. The visual field is layered and chaotic, reflecting the multiplicity of contemporary activism. Painted in fluorescent acrylics, these works literally change under black light, suggesting that visibility depends on illumination and intention.

Together, these works explore how protest, media, and generational awareness evolve. What was once hidden becomes visible. What was once televised becomes participatory. The child who was not allowed to see becomes the adult who refuses to look away.

Available individually

Discounted as a pair for $1,150