slaves, , visuali es an excerpt from a January , petition against slavery to state legislature, written by a slave named Felix Holbrook. Holbrook lived in assachusetts as an enslaved person during the Revolution. His voice demonstrates the hypocrisy that de ned the war between and , as colonists fought for liberty from Great ritain while their slaves remained in chains. In this panel, Lawrence’s color palette expands umber becomes richer, ochre becomes brighter. A yellow wall separates the white colonists on the right of the composition from the unclothed black slaves in chains, dripping with blood, on the left. The outcome of the event is uncertain, yet the juxtaposition of color used to de ne the characters clari es the racial division separating the black slaves from their white masters. The decision to pair this image and text in , one year after the seminal Supreme Court decision and the launch of the civil rights movement, alludes to the ongoing denial of full rights of citi enship that, by the mids, had spanned centuries. The cry for freedom in this panel could provide inspiration for African Americans still experiencing the divisiveness of racial discrimination and segregation to continue ghting on behalf of their people. Lawrence represented the end of the Revolution with anxious tension and uncertainty. “Victory and Defeat” relates the successful Patriot siege of orktown, Virginia, which in effect ended the major ghting of the Revolution. On October , Lord Charles Cornwallis was forced to seek a cease- re with Washington in order to negotiate his army’s surrender. Two days later, the Articles of Capitulation were signed at a surrender ceremony. However, Cornwallis,
pleading illness, did not attend the ceremony and his second-in-command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Lord Cornwallis’ sword to the American commanders. Lawrence’s painting emphasi es the symbolic gesture of a Redcoat’s arm passing a sword to an opposing arm cloaked in black, against the backdrop of a wall of cannons in an airy, unspeci ed landscape. The depiction of the surrender ceremony is ambiguous and perhaps ctional – who is in the painting Is the arm Cornwallis’ or O’Hara’s Nevertheless, through the opposition of the closed st and extended hand, Lawrence has captured the anxiety and uncertainty of the terms of surrender, suggesting –but not guaranteeing – an end to con ict and struggle, much like the rown v. oard of ducation decision. In , Lawrence completed sixteen panels. He still lingered on the Revolution, creating one more painting, yet he dramatically broadened his lens to include historical events up to . vents depicted include an excerpt from Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “The American Crisis” in gure , the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron urr in gure , the expedition of Lewis and Clark in gure , James adison’s war message to Congress in gure , the attle of Tippecanoe in gure , the expedition of Lewis and Clark and the fur trade at itter Root Trail in the s gure , the attle of Lake rie in gure , the burning of Washington by the ritish in gure , the attle of New Orleans in gure , the Treaty of Ghent in gure , a slave rebellion in gure , immigration from to gure , the building of the rie Canal in gure , and the onset of