Adri Norris “AfroTriangle”

Location: Lolita’s Market 800 Pearl Street Boulder

 August 18th 2020 marked the hundred year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. We think of this as a victory for women's rights. 1920 was the year in which women nationwide officially had the right to vote. But what is often overlooked is the fact that this was not true of every woman in the country.

Technically African American women, who participated heavily in the movement, did not have the right to vote in 1920. This is because of all the various voter suppression laws which had been leveled against Black people, dating back to 1865. Native American women, whose ancestors were here long before the first Europeans landed on these shores, were not able to vote either. Only about two thirds of Native Americans in the country were considered citizens, and so citizenship was the top priority of the time. Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans were technically citizens of this country after their lands were ceded to the United States from Spain. However, if you live in Puerto Rico, even now, you do not have the ability to vote for president. And if you were a person of Mexican descent and a woman, you actually had a fair number of rights that Anglo women didn't have, that is until those rights were taken away. If you were an Asian person in this country you were either here illegally because of laws keeping you out, like the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Page Act, or you could have been born here and were barred from citizenship due to various laws that prevented your naturalization.

The mural I painted for Street Wise is just a glimpse into the various ways in which this idea of enfranchisement does not actively affect every single person in this country. It also shows how many individuals fought for the right to vote but have not been recognized in all of our celebrations of the 19th Amendment.

Adrienne norris aka afro triangle

@afrotriangle

At an early age, I knew I wanted to be an artist. Throughout all my live changes, moving from Barbados to New York, to New Mexico, then joining the Marines, art was the one thing that persisted. I was raised to be a leader, to see myself as someone who could help people and improve lives.

It was only in the last few years that I figured out how I would do that. The Women Behaving Badly series was born out of a desire to educate people about women from the past. Their stories have been lost over time and this loss is a disservice to those women, to the women and girls living now and to society as a whole. Sharing these stories through my art inspires young girls with role models they’ve never seen before. These stories make adults think more about what they have and what they have yet to gain by listening to the voices of the unheard.

THANK YOU

This mural was generously sponsored by Lolita’s Market