Public Protest Art in the Internet Age: The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Lives Matter Movement

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/h128nf93v

Abstract

This thesis explores how public protest art and the elements that shape it, such as ‘publics’ and ‘community,’ are changing as social media forces the medium to adapt to a more digital sphere. Both protesting and social media allows for greater connectivity and underrepresented voices to be heard on a public platform. The literature review details a history of public protest art in North America, a history of visual art and representation for African Americans, important symbols that stemmed from the Black Arts movement, a history of the Black Lives Matter movement, and an overview of social media practices used by political activists and artists. I will be analyzing multiple images of public protest art, specifically murals, that stem from the Black Lives Matter movement. A Systematic Visuo-Textual method is used to analyze these images based on their visual and textual elements, illuminating the emerging patterns, such as use of symbols or common phrases, from this public protest art. The thesis concludes with a greater examination of these patterns and how they speak to the contemporary Black rights movement as it shifts to an online sphere.

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