In Allen Hall, there are several fresco murals painted from 1936 to 1939 as part of a project between several senior theses. The murals have gained attention from students and Student Government members who believe the murals are unwelcoming and racist, especially to Black students.
The mural shows farmworkers of mixed races picking cotton, using fishnets and driving farm machinery. Another section by the staircase shows an all-white team of scientists working in a science lab.
SG in 2021 made efforts to paint a more representative mural across from the current one. But it’s unclear what progress has been made in the project since then.
The Allen Hall murals were painted by four students: Jean Birkland, Sue Brown, Roy Henderson and Anne Woolfolk. Woolfolk was the student who painted the part of the mural displaying farmworkers, the segment that got attention from viral TikTok videos around September.
In her senior thesis, Woolfolk wrote that her segment, along the east corridor of Allen Hall, was inspired by what she had observed on industrial activities in Louisiana.
“The execution of this mural in fresco is the culmination of my experience gained from the work previously done in mural painting and embodies ideas which have resulted from observation and thought on life and industrial activities of the people of Louisiana,” she wrote in her thesis.
The mural was made with a technique of mural painting, fresco, which is done directly on the wall of a lime surface while the lime is still fresh or wet, Woolfolk said.
“Beginning at the south end of the building, the subjects represent industries primarily carried on in the southern part of the state and vary according to the geographical sequence,” Woolfolk said.
In the conclusion of her thesis, Woolfolk quoted Jose Clemente Orzoco, a Mexican painter who specialized in political murals.
“As a result of favorable comments and questions made by students concerning murals they partly or wholly understand, I find myself agreeing with Jose Clemente Orzoco when he says that mural decorations are best when they present ‘concepts of the collaborative good, upon which a progressive society and an increasing welfare for all could develop,’” she wrote.
Psychology and African and African American Studies junior Alexia Kimble posted a Tiktok in September that gained over 450,000 views, 91,000 likes and 2,400 comments. Part of the video shows Kimble standing in front of the mural.
“When I see the mural every time I go to class, I feel like I am not welcomed in that academic space based on the narrative that it is demonstrated within the art,” Kimble said.
Since going viral, Kimble has met with President of LSU, William Tate, to discuss the murals. According to Kimble, Tate agreed that the mural is not appropriate for an academic building.
Kimble is willing to fundraise money to professionally remove or digitize the mural, relocating it to a museum, Kimble said. Kimble believes it’s important to uplift LSU’s promise to provide an encouraging learning environment for all students.
“Our goal is not to destroy the history or the reality of injustices, but we do strongly affirm that it is not appropriate for an academic class building to have a mural that displays segregation, specifically in a class setting,” Kimble said.
In 2001, LSU art history alumna Elise Grenier restored the Allen Hall murals after nearly 70 years. She said she, as an art conservator, is neutral when it comes to the value and contents of the art she restores.
“As an art conservator who trained and practiced in Italy, the same is true of any art that was generated in ancient times,” Grenier said. “We still preserve it today, as it represents history, as bad or good as this may have been.”
According to Alcibiades Tsolkais, the Dean of the College of Arts and Design, the mural and its history don’t represent slavery; instead, they portray socialist ideals and equality.
He said it depicts a celebration of the working class that highlights heroic and exhausted laborers. “This is not about slavery,” he said. “This was the emancipation of the working class.”
Like Tsolakis, Grenier also believes that the mural’s purpose was not to represent or depict slavery. Because campus integrated in the 1960s, LSU faculty and students were not representative of African American, indigenous, Latino and Asian populations as it is today, she said.
“This is a historical fact and not a socio-political commentary on the part of the artists,” Grenier said. “They were only painting the reality of the LSU campus in the 1930s as they knew it.”
Several of the farmworkers depicted are from Caucasian, Creole and Black populations, she said, since it was the material reality of the 1930s.
“Art, literature and architecture from the past can be preserved and successfully used as a teaching tool, for better understanding of our history, and for a better outcome in the future,” Grenier said.
A mural lines the hallway inside Allen Hall on Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, on LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge, La.
