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Mural Artist | noelle lorraine williams
Williams is a lifelong Black feminist, artist, historian, and curator who was born in Jersey City and moved to Newark, Irvington, and East Orange in elementary school. Her commitment to cultural activism started as a student activist in high school.
She is a recipient of various awards in recognition of her work and her work has been written about in regional and national press.
Photo Credit: Rachel Fawn
MURAL ARTIST: NOELLE LORRAINE WILLIAMS
"work and serve the hour, lifting as we climb" -NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLORED WOMEN'S CLUBS
Acknowledgements
About THE MURAL
This project was a recipient of the National Academy of Design’s 2021 Abbey Mural Prize award for a public artwork and is further supported by SRI Fine Art Services.
Special thanks to Project for Empty Space co-directors Rebecca Jampol and Jasmine Wahi. Many thanks also to Randy Haze, Mark Haartman, and Luis Alberto Lopez Tomattis.
Also, gratitude to Beth Zak-Cohen and Dr. George Robb who contributed research for the exhibition "Radical Women: Fighting for Power and the Vote in NJ!" which took place at Newark Public Library in 2019 where the research on these Black women community leaders comes from.
Special thanks to First Lady Tammy Murphy and Secretary of State Tahesha Way for creating the year-long initiative NJ Women Vote: The 19th Amendment at 100 highlighting the stories of New Jersey Women and marking the passage 19th Amendment and the New Jersey Historical Commission for funding the research.
The artist Noelle Lorraine Williams’ mural is dedicated to Ravina Culler, Stella Culler and Catherine Lorraine Culler.
This mural celebrates the Black women in New Jersey who fought for the women’s right to vote and won!
On October 13th, 2022 it became the first mural in New Jersey to celebrate the Black women who worked in their communities to secure the vote.
It is located at Edison Street and Broad Street at the corner of the Project for Empty Space Building 800 Broad Street, Newark, NJ.
The contributions of these five New Jersey-based Black women community leaders – Newark residents: Blanche Harris (1), Musette Brooks Gregory (2), Newark-born Grace Baxter Fenderson (3), Florence Spearing Randolph (4) and, Violet Johnson (5) all advocated tirelessly to pass the 19th Amendment allowing Americans the right to vote regardless of gender.
These five prolific suffragists were community leaders who not only pushed for voter rights, but also led congregations, fundraised, volunteered with organizations such as the NAACP, and later worked to pressure New Jersey lawmakers to ratify the 19th Amendment.
“Work and serve the hour, lifting as we climb” is the motto of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC). The women were members of the statewide New Jersey Federation of Colored Women's Clubs which later became members of the national NACWC.
Click here to learn more about these Newark women activists here.