MIDDLE PASSAGE: WHITE SHIPS, BLACK CARGO
DRAWINGS BY TOM FEELINGS
On View: September 21, 2006 – January 21, 2007 Opening Reception: September 28, 2006 Curated by: McKissick Museum – University of South Carolina BROOKLYN, NY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2006

The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) and Independence Community Foundation are proud to bring home and present The Middle Passage: White Ships Black Cargo by the late master artist and Brooklyn native, Tom Feelings. This historic traveling exhibition has been organized by the McKissick Museum in South Carolina and features approximately fifty drawings visually detailing the importation of Africans from their homeland to the New World.  While this triumphant exhibition has traveled to over twenty cities across the United States, this is the first opportunity for the exhibition to be shown in the artist’s birthplace of Brooklyn, New York.  MoCADA feels honored and privileged to bring this important body of work to the Borough of Brooklyn, New York. The exhibition will be on view from September 21, 2006 – January 21, 2007. The Opening Reception will be held on Thursday, September 28, 2006 from 6pm – 9pm and is free to the public.

Facing this dark moment in our collective past is a difficult task, one that took Tom Feelings over twenty years to document and depict to his satisfaction. The Middle Passage: White Ships, Black Cargo exhibition conveys the fear, pain, and sheer power of the human will to survive. The eerie, spiritual silence of the drawings creates an astoundingly powerful tribute to the Africans who traveled "The Middle Passage," the name given to the leg of the Triangle Trade voyage from Africa to the New World that changed the destinies of millions of people.

The topic of slavery and its ugly smear on the American historical landscape has been a subject that Blacks and Whites have equally avoided because of the pain, anguish, embarrassment, and grief associated with this dark period of history. The innovation in this exhibition is that MoCADA will carry out the vision of Mr. Feelings by making the viewer feel as if they are aboard a slave trading ship. The illustrations evoke the suffering and desperation felt by the captive peoples who were force-fed, beaten, and chained in small, cramped spaces in the hulls of ships.  By exposing these horrific conditions, we aim to provide an in-depth understanding of the catastrophic events that led to the prosperity of modern-day America.  Furthermore, it is our hope that this exhibition will initiate the dialogue necessary to bring about the type of social change needed in today’s society

Mr. Feelings believed that understanding the harsh realities of slavery would strengthen people, especially children, for the future.  In addition to the exhibition, several educational programs sponsored by the Independence Community Foundation have been created to complement the exhibition.  These programs include guided tours for school groups and public programs for adults, children, and families. We have also organized panel discussions with the foremost art historians, writers, artists, civic, and social leaders in order to discuss the ramifications of this painful history and how we can progress together as a nation socially, economically and politically.  

TOM FEELINGS (1933-2003)

Born in the community of Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1933, Feelings began his artistic career at an early age by creating copies of popular comic strip characters.  Upon graduation from the George Westinghouse Vocational High School in 1951, where he majored in art, Feelings studied at the Cartoonists & Illustrators School in New York City.  In 1953, he moved to London, England to work as a staff artist in the graphics division of the US Third Air Force.  Four years later, in 1957, Feelings returned to the US and worked as a freelance artist, and created the popular comic strip, “Tommy Traveler in the World of Black History,” which ran in the New York Age Newspaper until 1959.  That same year, Feelings enrolled in New York’s School of the Arts.  In 1964, after completing his studies, he traveled to Ghana, West Africa. 

After his return to the US in 1966, Feelings began illustrating children’s books centered on African American life and culture.  “To Be a Slave” written by Julius Lester and illustrated by Tom Feelings received the Newberry Honor in 1968.  This was the first time that this honor was presented to a Black author.  From 1971-1974, Feelings continued his travels in Guyana, South America where he continued to illustrate and write children’s books. 

In 1975, Feelings began his twenty year journey of creating the illustrations for the Middle Passage.  The images took so many years to complete because Feelings wanted each image to perfectly embody the emotional hardship and torment caused by the horrific journey from the continent of Africa to America and the images themselves had profound physiological and emotional effects on him.  In essence, Feelings wanted the images to “tell the story.”  While working on these images, Feelings taught drawing and illustration at the University of South Carolina’s Department of Art (1988-1996).  The drawings began a national tour in 1998 and have mesmerized audiences worldwide ever since.