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God’s Trombones (Great Art Inside)
The Murals of Aaron Douglas at Fisk University
In 1927, James Weldon Johnson published a book of poems based on the oratory of black preachers. Johnson got one of his friends, legendary artist Aaron Douglas, to do the artwork for the book. Their effort turned into one of the masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance period. Johnson used trombones as a metaphor for the deep, wide-ranging voices of black pastors in the eight pieces which he wrote and Douglas interpreted with his art.
I attended Fisk University in the mid-seventies, not long after Aaron Douglas retired after 29 years of service as Chairman of the Art Department he founded. He continued to live in Nashville until his death in 1979. His art survives him at Fisk and was there for all to see in Cravath Hall. now the Administration Bldg. which once served as the Fisk library.
I’m ashamed to say I cut through Cravath Hall two to three times a week. Never wandering up to the second floor to see for myself, the artwork of the man that portrayed black people with pride and not shame. Dr. David Driskell; Emeritus Professor at the University of Maryland called Douglas, “The father of…
