The total picture: Activist artist Virginia Jackson Kiah and the Black house museum beyond the frame

Abstract

This article presents artist activist Virginia Jackson Kiah as a key figure in the phenomenon of the African American house museum. Readers will benefit from this layer of Kiah scholarship and its contributions to the field of anthropology by looking at a talented artist fueled by her status as a Black woman denied civil, civic, and human rights. Therefore, Virginia Jackson Kiah recreated herself as an artist activist who led a cultural resistance to racism in the arts prior to desegregation and the civil rights movement. As a scholar outside the realm of anthropology, art criticism, and analysis, I approach this project from the stance of a storyteller applying cultural studies methodology and content analysis. I posit that more attention should be given to the total artist—not just the person that had a grasp of brush, paint, pencil, and canvas. Besides her gifts as a painter, little has been written about Virginia Jackson Kiah, the interdisciplinary artist activist who examined culture and history as a musician, composer, singer, pianist, and arts educator. This recovery project fills several voids using archived materials and interviews which recast a total picture of Virginia Jackson Kiah as an artist and activist.