(AllHipHop News) A cadre of artists and activists have convened creatively to remind Americans of the evils that have been perpetrated against the nation since Donald Trump has been elected president.
RemememberWhatTheyDid.com and #VoteThemOut serve as a catalyst and spark that will target underserved communities using visual arts on billboards.
Shepard Fairey, known politically as the creator of the Obama “Change” poster, Nekisha Durrett, Nate Lewis, Rafael Lopez, Robert Russell, Rob Sheridan, and Swoon (Caledonia Curry) are the artists that will jump-start the street art campaign.
Artist Nakeisha Durrett said she hopes her art, which highlights racism, will lead people to the polls.
“The Covid pandemic coupled with continued police brutality brought to the surface inequities across race and gender in every facet of American life,” said Durrett. “This reckoning with America’s racist legacy has been led by young activists who have taken the movement for Black Lives to the streets. The artwork embodies the energy of these young activists in an effort to connect to communities on a visceral level and to move everyone to the voting booth in November.”
The effort is a partnership with Collective Super PAC, a political organization dedicated to building Black political power with candidate support and nationwide voter registration and education campaigns.
The revered artists will focus largely on U.S. President Donald Trump’s “failed leadership” on key issues like police brutality, racism, hate speech, immigration, and the Coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 170,000 Americans.
Shepard Fairey’s art points squarely at Donald Trump and his handling of largely peaceful protests all over the nations.
“My art piece is a reminder that while the American public was protesting in the streets, in record numbers, against racism and police brutality, Donald Trump was encouraging police brutality against the protesters, reinforcing the very same problems within law enforcement and the criminal justice systems the protesters were demanding to be reformed. This image implies that the police are supposed to be peacekeepers, not warriors, and that Donald Trump is on the wrong side of social justice and the wrong side of history!”
The RemememberWhatTheyDid campaign blasts off in Detroit, Michigan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Phoenix, Arizona, all battleground areas. The brutally honest billboards will be seen with a poster street art campaign. The art will feature controversial, but real statements from Trump and his cronies.
RememberWhatTheyDid.com will not only host this incredible art, but it will offer voter registration, offer education on early voting, and even possible crowdfunding options for additional billboards in battleground states.
“These images are a stark reminder of the atrocities perpetrated by this President and his allies. We are connecting what has been said and done with the importance of voting. Our message is simple: Remember what they did and vote them out,” said Bell.
RememberWhatTheyDid.com is the brainchild of Robin Bell and Scott Goodstein, a digital strategist who advised President Barack Obama during his first presidential campaign.
“Robin Bell and I [sought] to push aggressive messaging mixed with emotional graphics that speak directly to the movements that are happening on the streets,” Goodstein told AllHipHop exclusively. “This is a collaboration with some of our nation’s best artists from all genres to visually show the issues and give reasons why voting is so critical this November. We have to make sure that all voters are spoken with and I could not sit on the sidelines knowing that many voters were not ever going to see most political digital ads.”
The RemememberWhatTheyDid campaign is a project of Artists United for Change.
Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur contributed to this story.