Hi, I am Sonja Griffin Evans, Gullah Artisan,
born and reared in Beaufort, South Carolina,
a place where a lot of America's
history has taken place.
And here I am today at the Reconstruction Era National Monument,
explaining the painting that I was commissioned to do
for the one year anniversary of the park.
As I was creating this painting, which is entitled Mine
Eyes Have Seen the Glory I kept hearing over and over in my mind
the words of that song.
♫ Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord.
♫ And I stopped it right there because I was capturing the feelings,
the political atmosphere, the landscape and most important,
the physical manifestation of the desires
of the enslaved Africans to be free.
In the painting, you will notice that
the people are walking in or being ushered in by this soldier,
starting from the oldest
to the youngest, and the woman in the front, as you see,
and she's walking hurriedly with her cane
because she has lived
this life of enslavement longer than anyone else
here in the island.
And so therefore, she is walking
with a heart full of hope, a heart filled with a desire once again
to be free and freedom for her descendants.
And as you look along the painting,
you'll see other people that are walking through.
And I say that these are the different generations
of the people that were enslaved here in South Carolina.
And so therefore, you're ending with one of the youngest.
So I said, you know, the oldest captured
and preserved all of their culture and their heritage
and their stories, and they passed it down to the youngest generation.
And so in the painting, you will notice that
there are always hide like images
in the painting or secret messages.
So this is a moment of January 1st, 1863.
And as you can see, the year on the buckle here on his uniform.
And then you also notice the hidden words of justice and liberty,
because at this moment, the landscape that my ancestors
were enslaved upon for so long is now becoming their country, too.
They and it has been done by his stripes,
as you see, on the pole for the flag.
And so you also see different location
in the park where you have Darrah Hall.
I painted that on his back pocket because your back pocket
is where mostly a man will carry what is most valuable to him.
So he has an understanding that
he is now a benefactor of his ancestors and it is up to him to be a good steward
of what he has been given so he knows how valuable that is.
And then also you'll see in the drum,
you know where the drum is, the church, you'll see the church,
Brick Baptist Church, which is also on Penn's Center campus.
And the church is like the heartbeat of that community.
So that's why I placed it on the drum.
And then when you look at the soldier
who is not only ushering the people in
or ushering in that moment,
he too, he's going through an emotional
state as well, because
now he was able to once again
become a man and not only fight for the rights
and the freedom of his self, but for his family and for his community.
And then therefore, you also see
that in his eyes, he's hoping that
the promise of freedom, because that's what they were fighting
for, just the promise of freedom
that he fought for
will manifest is manifesting
and will continue for generations after generations.
And in the midst of every thing that is going on,
you see, there is one little butterfly in this painting
and the light is shining on that butterfly
because that butterfly represents
the metamorphosis, the change that is about to come.
That's why I call this piece: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
of the Coming of the Lord because each and every person
in that painting is now
seeing the glory of the Lord.
As I look at the painting, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
it captures my ancestors walking through freedom's door.
And I can imagine the emotions and the feelings
of walking through that door for the very last time
as an enslaved person into a new freedom in a new way of life.
And I heard the voice of my ancestors
say, “De freedum iz a step.
Way opun da do’ freedum, gwine.
My’own murruh, bredduh, sistuh, de gone’way b’fd git’way
dis freedum do’ don' know'um
wha spec yon dis do’.
Oneting know’um ent gwine lib dis ya lif’
no mo.” So my ancestors understood
to take the key,
open the door and find your freedom.
♫Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord.♫