Sculptors Frederick Hightower and Dana King will present their concepts to the public on Thursday, Oct. 19, at 5 p.m. and Thursday, Oct. 26, at 5:15 p.m., respectively. Following the presentations, audience members will be asked to provide feedback to help determine which concept moves forward.
Both presentations will be held in the John L. and Christine Warner Library and Student Center, room 126, at 1219 University Drive in Newark. Coffee and dessert will be served. Registration is encouraged at go.osu.edu/bakerpresentations. Those who cannot attend in person may join virtually on Zoom at go.osu.edu/ellabaker (passcode: 121303).
Who is Ella Baker?
Ella Baker was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement — the most important American social movement of the 20th century — yet has often gone unrecognized. Although Baker was as influential as Martin Luther King Jr., her work as a Black woman has been comparatively invisible. Scholars attribute this not just to her gender and the dominance of a King-centered narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, but to the decentralized leadership style she modeled. She focused not on imparting wisdom but on empowering individuals and local groups to recognize their own potential and find their own solutions.
Baker’s radical vision of participatory democracy recognized the knowledge of members of marginalized and oppressed groups. In the 1960s, she guided the next generation toward creating the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Her support and mentorship empowered students, invigorated with new ideas of leadership, to found SNCC and a new youth-led phase of the Civil Rights Movement. For these reasons, Baker is the ideal choice to be recognized on a college campus.
About the artists
Dana King is a classical figurative sculptor who creates public monuments of Black bodies in Bronze. A research and history enthusiast, she believes sculpture provides an opportunity to shape culturally significant memories that determine how African descendants are publicly held and remembered.
In addition to her bust of Dr. Huey Newton in West Oakland, California, her life-size bronze artwork is in Berkeley, California (“A Man for the People”); New Haven, Connecticut (“King William Lanson”); and at the Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama (“Guided by Justice”). In 2021, she installed and dedicated “Monumental Reckoning” in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She was the first African American woman to create a sculptural installation in the park representing the history of African descendants. Examples of her work may be found at danakingart.com.
Frederick Hightower is a master sculptor, muralist and portraitist. His sculptures are curated by using centuries-old classical techniques by Donatello. Hightower likes to transform clay into a living work of classical beauty, exactly in line with the aesthetics of figurative art.
His works are displayed at museums and universities and include sculptures in Baltimore, Maryland, of educator Fanny Jackson Coppin; and in Huntington, West Virginia, of basketball player Hal Greer and mathematician Katherine Johnson, the African American woman whose work for NASA was featured in the film “Hidden Figures.” Examples of his work may be found at frederickhightowerfineart.com.