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Hank Wills Thomas Raise Up Analysis

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Hank Wills Thomas is an African-American photographer and visual artist. His main point of interests in sculpturing revolves on race, popular culture and advertising. Born on March 17, 1976 in Plainfield, New Jersey, Thomas is a popular and well-known artist. Through his talented artistic sculptures, Hank Willis Thomas has received honorary awards including winning the Aperture West Book Prize, featuring of his work in other publications such as the Reflection in Black, and other several exhibitions in galleries and museums. Thomas’ sculptures portray a reflection on the social injustices against the blacks. Through his photographic and visual art, he tries to communicate the essence of equality among races manifested in the strengths and abilities of blacks in the society. Also, as portrayed by his sculptures, he significantly condemns injustices based on racial groups and expresses his concern on the smooth convergence among different ethnic and racial groups. …show more content…

For instance, Thomas sculptures the heads and arms of the black miners in South Africa. This sculpture contains the ten out of the thirteen miners, initially pictured by Ernest Cole, as they experience a humiliating medical inspection by the white doctors. Thomas captions the sculpture “Raise Up.” The imagery portrayed by the sculpture is not appealing. After undergoing through the humiliating experience, the sign later signifies the industry’s power to manipulate the worker’s body (Bmoreart.com). Then, the sculpture turns out to be a sign of insurgency that leads to exhortation and subsequent rebellion of the Black Americans against their oppressors. Rising of arms signifies surrender, but through the captioning by Thomas, it ignites and challenges the Blacks to fight against the powers of slavery and racial

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The piece is intended to speak to art critics who recognize the allusion to the classical Greco-Roman sculptures. Since the Greco-Roman tradition is held in high regard, Ward asserts that the black man has taken an elevated position in American society worthy of respect. Of course, the Freedman by John Quincy Adams Ward does an accurate job of alluding back to the Greco-Roman slaves. And it is true that the boxer sculpture did help empower the image of African Americans. After all, the Boxer sculpture is America’s first accurate representation of an African American.

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He explains that he will fight unjust laws, even if it means spending a night in jail. He is willing to take the penalty for breaking a law, but is unwilling to let unjust laws degrade and take over African American’s

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To begin, he uses emotional appeal to create powerful imagery to persuade the reader that celebrating freedom is wrong when slavery still exists. He announces, “fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them” (para. 4). By creating a picture in the audience’s mind of other people’s cries of freedom deriding slaves, they begin to feel ashamed for being so cheerful while African Americans have no liberty. The readers have recognized that they are being hypocrites by supporting slavery while boasting about their freedom as a country, which leads them to begin wanting to

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