MICHELLE DUSTER’S MURAL PROJECT CEMENTS THE STORIES OF HISTORIC WOMEN ACROSS THE NATION

A dedication was held in NYC last month for the National Suffrage Mural Series. Next up is an unveiling in Portland.

Michelle Duster has spent years making sure history is visible where people live, work, and walk. Now the public historian, and great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells, is helping carry that vision across the country.

As Co-Director of Monumenta's National Suffrage Mural Series, Duster, working with Artistic Director Neysa Page-Lieberman, is expanding a project that began in Chicago with three large-scale murals installed in 2021 and 2023. On October 23, artist Sam Kirk's mural was dedicated at P.S. 134 in New York City, portraying 16 women tied to the city's suffrage history. Portland, Oregon follows in early December with a mural by Addie Boswell honoring ten local leaders. Monumenta plans to reach ten cities in all.

Chicago remains the series' foundation, and Duster's imprint on the city's public landscape runs deeper still. She spearheaded the Ida B. Wells monument in Bronzeville, Light of Truth, created by the late sculptor Richard Hunt. Standing near the site of the former Ida B. Wells Homes, the sculpture honors the journalist and anti-lynching crusader whose work reshaped the nation's conscience. It is now a landmark of Black Chicago memory.

Duster's message is consistent: suffrage was not one story. "The strategies and victories were unique in each community and region," she says. The murals also remind viewers that the 19th Amendment did not secure the ballot for every woman. Black women gained full voting rights in 1965.

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