Celebrate People's History

GVSU Performing Arts Center Gallery, Allendale Campus
August 28, 2020 - November 6, 2020

Rooted in the do-it-yourself tradition of mass-produced and distributed political propaganda, the Celebrate People’s History (CPH) poster series seeks to generate a diverse collection that brings to life successful moments in the history of social justice struggles. The project has been organized and curated by Josh MacPhee for over twenty years, beginning in 1998 when he created a poster of Malcolm X, and then pasted copies throughout Chicago’s West Side. Over the following years, MacPhee asked artists and designers to join the CPH project by finding events, groups, and people who have moved forward the collective struggle of humanity to create a more equitable and just world and to interpret them with their unique vision and style.

Today CPH posters grace the walls of living center rooms, apartments, community centers, classrooms, and city streets. Over 125 different designs have been printed in the past twenty years, adding up to nearly half a million total posters. Although MacPhee has organized and funded these posters himself, the series has always been a collective project. Nearly two hundred artists have designed posters, including Brett Colley, associate professor in the Department of Visual & Media Arts at Grand Valley State University. In addition to the artists, multiple community-based print shops have done the production, dozens of people have run around at night pasting them on the street, and thousands have helped distribute them around the world.

Download the Learning Guide.
View all the posters in the GVSU Art Collection online.

Artist and GVSU faculty Brett Colley talks about his creative process and involvement in the exhibition.

Posters, Artists, and Featured Stories

Posters by Date

All posters, in order of their addition to the project.

Malcolm X, Josh MacPhee, May 1998 (reprinted October 2018)
May Day, Eric Drooker, April 1999
John Brown, Josh MacPhee, May 1999
Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Action, Darrell Gane-McCalla, March 2001
Sylvia Ray Rivera and Stonewall, John Gerkin, June 2001 (reprinted March 2009)
Jane—Underground Abortion Service , Meredith Stern, November 2001
Emma Goldman, Ben Rubin , February 2002 (reprinted January 2009)
Battle of Homestead , Erok Boerer, November 2002
Las Mujeres Libres, Cristy C. Road, June 2004
Mothers of East Los Angeles , Jen Cartwright, July 2004
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (& Maids) , Meredith Stern, December 2004
Muhammad Ali Refuses to Fight, Colin Matthes, December 2004
Milwaukee 14, Brandon Bauer, March 2005
Cochabamba Water Struggle , Swoon, April 2005
Louise Olivereau , Aprille Thurheimer, April 2005
The White Rose , Keinom, February 2006
The Occupation of Alcatraz , Josh MacPhee, February 2006
ADAPT, Jen Cartwright, September 2006
Korean Peasant's League , Nicole Schulman, November 2006
Dolores Huerta , Bobby Cortez and Blake Riley , December 2006
Miss Molly Jackson , Pete Railand, February 2007
Battle of Blair Mountain, Chris Stain, March 2007
Secession of the Plebs , Art Hazelwood, March 2007
IWW Local 8 , Peter Cole (text) and Marc Nelson (art), May 2007
8.8.88, Keinom, May 2007
Act Up Philadelphia , Courtney Dailey (art) and Act Up Philadelphia (text), July 2007
Buga-Up , Tom Civil (design) and Iain McIntyre (text/concept), August 2007
Durruti Column, Josh MacPhee, September 2007
EZLN, Kate Luscher, July 2008
Kalamazoo Corset Strike, Shaun Slifer and Sara Meister, August 2008
Grace and Jimmy Boggs, Bec Young, August 2008
Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker, James David Morgan, September 2008
Sequoyah and the Cherokee Writing System, SpeakEasy Press, December 2008
Red Feds, Garage Collective, January 2009
Narmada Bachao Andolan, Robin Hewlett, February 2009
Oaxaca Women's Resistance, Tim Simons and Barucha Calamity Peller, March 2009
Youth-Led Resistance to Immigration Raids and Deportations, Jesus Barraza, March 2009
Matzpen, Joshua Kahn Russell and Dan Berger, August 2009
Atenco Aguanta, Melanie Cervantes, September 2009
Dil Pickle Club, Marc Moscato, Fred Sasaki, and Dean Rank, September 2009
Madres de Plaza de Mayo, John Isaacson, September 2009
Flint Sit-Down Strike, Dylan A.T. Miner, December 2009
The Haitian Revolution, Aaron Renier, May 2010
Assata Shakur is Free, Molly Fair and Laura Whitehorn, May 2010
DRUM, Bec Young, June 2010
Los Siete de la Raza, Fernando Martí, October 2010
Sacco and Vanzetti, Josh MacPhee, October 2010
El Hijo del Ahuizote, Santiago Armengod, October 2010
Co-Madres, Nicole Schulman (art) and Mara Komoska (text), October 2010
National Prisoners Reform Association, Alexander Dwinell and Sanya Hyland, October 2010
Crass, Brandon Bauer, December 2010
The Diggers, Erik Ruin, December 2010
Jana Sanskriti, Morgan F.P. Andrews, January 2011
Jamaican Maroons Fend Off the British, Damon Locks, January 2012
Jane Jacobs, Sabrina Jones, January 2012
Vieques Libre, Dave Buchen, January 2012
Wisconsin Workers' Uprising 2011, Sue Simensky Bietila, February 2012
Major Taylor, Janet Attard, February 2012
Prison Justice Day, Rocky Tobey, March 2012
Seki Ran Kai, Redeye (illustration) and Keisuke Narita (design), April 2012
The International Hotel, Claude Moller (design), Jerry Jew and Chris Fujimoto (photographs), April 2012
Animal Liberation Front, Karen Fiorito, April 2012
New Jewish Agenda, Abigail Miller (text) and Ezra Nepon (art), May 2012
Walter Rodney, Josh MacPhee, July 2012
The Underground Railroad, Sam Kerson, July 2012
For a Society Without Prisons, Josh MacPhee, July 2012
Audre Lorde, Katrina Silander Clark, May 2013
Grace Paley, Meredith Stern, May 2013
Squamish 5, Matt Gauck, June 2013
Luddites, Shaun Slifer, June 2014
Grandmothers of Austin, The Stockyard Institute, June 2014
Matilde Landa, Un Mundo Feliz, July 2014
El Maquis, Un Mundo Feliz, July 2014
ILWU and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle, Blanco (art) and Peter Cole (text), November 2014
The Lesbian Herstory Archives, Carrie Moyer (design) and Morgan Gwenwald (photograph), November 2014
Amazon Army, Dave Loewenstein, November 2014
The Pueblo Revolt, Dylan A.T. Miner, March 2015
Primo Tapia de la Cruz, Christopher Cardinale, March 2015
Seattle: Direct Action Shuts Down the WTO, Nicolas Lampert, April 2015
Chico Mendes, Colin Matthes, April 2015
The People of Egypt: We’re Still Here, Ganzeer, June 2015
The Red Wheelies, Rachael House, June 2015
J18, or the Carnival Against Capitalism, Edd Baldry, September 2015
James Baldwin, John Jennings, November 2015
Yarmouk, Ethan Heitner, November 2015
Amilcar Cabral, Josh MacPhee, November 2015
Feminist Comix, Emily Brymer, September 2016
Bayard Rustin, Eli Brown, September 2016
Ghassan Kanafani, Jamaa Al-Yad, October 2016
Dockum Drug Store Sit-In, Cheyenne Garrison, December 2016
U.S. Indian Industrial Training School at Haskell, Lana Grove, December 2016
The Young Lords Organization, Ricardo Levins Morales, January 2017
Annie Diggs, Emi Gennis, March 2017
Québec 2001: Un Carnaval Contre le Capitalisme, Kevin Yuen-Kit lo (art and design) and Stefan Christoff (concept and text), April 2017
Woody Guthrie, Scout, May 2017
Sister Corita Kent, Shannon Gerard and Mary Tremonte, May 2017
Loukanikos the Riot Dog, Zola, April 2018
The Brown Berets, Julio Cordova, April 2018
Las 17+, Micho Vega, May 2018
Lick Your Elbow, Josh MacPhee, May 2018
Rani of Jhansi, Bishakh Som, August 2018
Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, Andre Perez, August 2018
Harry Hay, Miriam Klein Stahl, November 2018
Ray Jackson, The Ray Jackson Memorial Collective, November 2018
Int’l Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, Jenny Schmid, August 2019
World Charter for Prostitutes’ Rights, Devika Sen, August 2019
Ursula K. Le Guin, Sophie Yanow, October 2019
Octavia Butler, Susie Wilson, October 2019
Protect Mauna Kea, Ashley Lukashevsky, November 2019
Take a Knee Protests, Brett Colley, July 2020
The Battle of Mactan, Kill Joy, August 2020
The Paris Commune, Fred Sochard, August 2020
Angel Island Liberty Association, Christine Wong Yap, August 2020
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, Miriam Klein Stahl and Josh MacPhee, August 2020
Vanguard Street Sweep, Edie Fake, August 2020
Landless Workers Movement (MST), Camila Rosa, August 2020
Reparations Now, Reparations Won!, Monica Trinidad, August 2020

Posters by Artist

All posters, listed alphabetically by artist last name.

Al-Yad, Jamaa, Ghassan Kanafani , October 2016
Andrews, Morgan F.P., Jana Sanskriti , January 2011
Armengod, Santiago, El Hijo del Ahuizote , October 2010
Attard, Janet, Major Taylor , February 2012
Baldry, Edd, J18, or the Carnival Against Capitalism , September 2015
Barraza, Jesus, Youth-Led Resistance to Immigration Raids and Deportations , March 2009
Bauer, Brandon, Milwaukee 14 , March 2005
Bauer, Brandon, Crass , December 2010
Berger, Dan and Joshua Kahn Russell, Matzpen , August 2009
Bietila, Sue Simensky, Wisconsin Workers' Uprising 2011 , February 2012
Blanco (art) and Peter Cole (text), ILWU and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle , November 2014
Boerer, Erok, Battle of Homestead , November 2002
Brown, Eli, Bayard Rustin , September 2016
Brymer, Emily, Feminist Comix , September 2016
Buchen, Dave, Vieques Libre , January 2012
Cardinale, Christopher, Primo Tapia de la Cruz , March 2015
Cartwright, Jen, Mothers of East Los Angeles , July 2004
Cartwright, Jen, ADAPT , September 2006
Cervantes, Melanie, Atenco Aguanta , September 2009
Civil, Tom (design) and Iain McIntyre (text/concept), Buga-Up , August 2007
Clark, Katrina Silander, Audre Lorde, May 2013
Cole, Peter (text) and Marc Nelson (art), Secession of the Plebs, May 2007
Colley, Brett, Take a Knee Protests, July 2020
Cordova, Julio, The Brown Berets, April 2018
Cortez, Bobby and Blake Riley, Dolores Huerta, December 2006
Dailey, Courtney (art) and Act Up Philadelphia (text), Act Up Philadelphia, July 2007
Drooker, Eric, May Day, April 1999
Dwinell, Alexander and Sanya Hyland, National Prisoners Reform Association, October 2010
Fair, Molly and Laura Whitehorn, Assata Shakur is Free, May 2010
Fake, Edie, Vanguard Street Sweep, August 2020
Fiorito, Karen, Animal Liberation Front, April 2012
Gane-McCalla, Darrell, Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Action, March 2001
Ganzeer, The People of Egypt: We’re Still Here, June 2015
Garage Collective, Red Feds, January 2009
Garrison, Cheyenne, Dockum Drug Store Sit-In, December 2016
Gauck, Matt, Squamish 5, June 2013
Gennis, Emi, Annie Diggs, March 2017
Gerard, Shannon and Mary Tremonte, Sister Corita Kent, May 2017
Gerkin, John, Sylvia Ray Rivera and Stonewall, June 2001 (reprinted March 2009)
Grove, Lana, U.S. Indian Industrial Training School at Haskell, December 2016
Hazelwood, Art, Secession of the Plebs, March 2007
Heitner, Ethan, Yarmouk, November 2015
Hewlett, Robin, Narmada Bachao Andolan, February 2009
House, Rachael, The Red Wheelies, June 2015
Isaacson, John, Madres de Plaza de Mayo, September 2009
Jennings, John, James Baldwin, November 2015
Jones, Sabrina, Jane Jacobs, January 2012
Keinom, 8.8.88, May 2007
Keinom, The White Rose , February 2006
Kerson, Sam, The Underground Railroad, July 2012
Kill Joy, The Battle of Mactan, August 2020
Lampert, Nicolas, Seattle: Direct Action Shuts Down the WTO, April 2015
Lo, Kevin Yuen-Kit (art and design) and Stefan Christoff (concept and text), Québec 2001: Un Carnaval Contre le Capitalisme, April 2017
Locks, Damon, Jamaican Maroons Fend Off the British, January 2012
Loewenstein, Dave, Amazon Army, November 2014
Lukashevsky, Ashley, Protect Mauna Kea, November 2019
Luscher, Kate, EZLN, July 2008
MacPhee, Josh - John Brown, May 1999
MacPhee, Josh - Malcolm X, May 1998 (reprinted October 2018)
MacPhee, Josh, Amilcar Cabral, November 2015
MacPhee, Josh, Durruti Column, September 2007
MacPhee, Josh, For a Society Without Prisons, July 2012
MacPhee, Josh, Lick Your Elbow, May 2018
MacPhee, Josh, Sacco and Vanzetti, October 2010
MacPhee, Josh, The Occupation of Alcatraz, February 2006
MacPhee, Josh, Walter Rodney, July 2012
Martí, Fernando, Los Siete de la Raza, October 2010
Matthes, Colin, Muhammad Ali Refuses to Fight, December 2004
Matthes, Colin, Chico Mendes, April 2015
Meister, Sara and Shaun Slifer, Kalamazoo Corset Strike, August 2008
Miller, Abigail (text) and Ezra Nepon (art), New Jewish Agenda, May 2012
Miner, Dylan A.T., Flint Sit-Down Strike, December 2009
Miner, Dylan A.T., The Pueblo Revolt, March 2015
Moller, Claude (design), Jerry Jew and Chris Fujimoto (photographs), The International Hotel, April 2012
Morales, Ricardo Levins, The Young Lords Organization, January 2017
Morgan, James David, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker, September 2008
Moscato, Marc, Fred Sasaki, and Dean Rank, Dil Pickle Club, September 2009
Moyer, Carrie (design) and Morgan Gwenwald (photograph), The Lesbian Herstory Archives, November 2014
Perez, Andre, Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, August 2018
Railand, Pete, Miss Molly Jackson, February 2007
Redeye (illustration) and Keisuke Narita (design), Seki Ran Kai, April 2012
Renier, Aaron, The Haitian Revolution, May 2010
Road, Cristy C., Las Mujeres Libres, June 2004
Rosa, Camila, Landless Workers Movement (MST), August 2020
Rubin, Ben, Emma Goldman, February 2002 (reprinted January 2009)
Ruin, Erik, The Diggers, December 2010
Schmid, Jenny, Int’l Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, August 2019
Schulman, Nicole (art) and Mara Komoska (text), Co-Madres, October 2010
Schulman, Nicole, Korean Peasant's League, November 2006
Scout, Woody Guthrie, May 2017
Sen, Devika, World Charter for Prostitutes’ Rights, August 2019
Simons, Tim and Barucha Calamity Peller, Oaxaca Women's Resistance, March 2009
Slifer, Shaun, Luddites, June 2014
Sochard, Fred, The Paris Commune, August 2020
Som, Bishakh, Rani of Jhansi, August 2018
SpeakEasy Press, Sequoyah and the Cherokee Writing System, December 2008
Stahl, Miriam Klein and Josh MacPhee, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, August 2020
Stahl, Miriam Klein, Harry Hay, November 2018
Stain, Chris, Battle of Blair Mountain, March 2007
Stern, Meredith, Jane—Underground Abortion Service, November 2001
Stern, Meredith, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (& Maids), December 2004
Stern, Meredith, Grace Paley, May 2013
Swoon, Cochabamba Water Struggle, April 2005
The Ray Jackson Memorial Collective, Ray Jackson, November 2018
The Stockyard Institute, Grandmothers of Austin, June 2014
Thurheimer, Aprille, Louise Olivereau, April 2005
Tobey, Rocky, Prison Justice Day, March 2012
Trinidad, Monica, Reparations Now, Reparations Won!, August 2020
Un Mundo Feliz, El Maquis, July 2014
Un Mundo Feliz, Matilde Landa, July 2014
Vega, Micho, Las 17+, May 2018
Wilson, Susie, Octavia Butler, October 2019
Yanow, Sophie, Ursula K. Le Guin, October 2019
Yap, Christine Wong, Angel Island Liberty Association, August 2020
Young, Bec, DRUM, June 2010
Young, Bec, Grace and Jimmy Boggs, August 2008
Zola, Loukanikos the Riot Dog, April 2018

Featured Posters & Stories

Featured posters and the stories behind their creation or subject.

Notes from the Curator, 15 Years On
"I’ve now been organizing the Celebrate People’s History poster series for over 15 years, and have printed almost 80 different posters. In order to add another layer of depth to the project, I have been asking the poster artists and designers to send me texts about what inspired them, sketches, and source photos." - Josh MacPhee, 2012

Seki Ran Kai , Redeye (illustration) and Keisuke Narita (design), April 2012
Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs , Bec Young, August 2008
Wisconsin Workers' Uprising 2011 , Sue Simensky Bietila, February 2012

The Making Of...

The Luddites , Shaun Slifer, June 2014
"Last autumn, I finished up a design for a new poster in the Celebrate People’s History series, and it’s just now hot off the presses (you can get it here)! The subject of the poster is the Luddites – not those contemporary freaks without Instagram accounts, but rather the original insurrections in the Midlands of England, roughly 1811-1813, during the violent creep of mechanization of the trades into the cultural fabric of English society. I thought it would be worthwhile to detail my design process here." - Shaun Slifer. Read more here.
Oaxaca Women's Resistance , Tim Simons and Barucha Calamity Peller, March 2009
A look behind Tim Simon’s Celebrate People’s History Poster (taken from his blog, Some News, Mostly Propaganda).

There are not any photos at this time

About the Curator

Josh MacPhee is a designer, artist, and archivist. He is a founding member of both the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements based in Brooklyn, NY. MacPhee is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now and Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture (and other books linked above). He has organized the Celebrate People's History poster series since 1998 and has been designing book covers for many publishers for the past decade (AntumbraDesign.org). His most recent book is An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels (Common Notions, 2019), a compendium of information about political music and radical cultural production.

Artist and designer Josh MacPhee holding a poster depicting pennants that list the words dream, learn, fight, think, strike, build, grow, listen

Curator, Josh MacPhee

Key Themes & Research Tools

The posters in this exhibition feature events, groups, and individual people who, in the words of curator Josh MacPhee, "have moved forward the collective struggle of humanity to create a more equitable and just world." You will find posters depicting lesser-known human rights activists, posters honoring protests from decades past, and posters celebrating histories that don't always show up in text books. MacPhee explains, "The posters tell stories from the subjective position of the artists, and are often the stories of underdogs, those written out of history. The goal of this project is not to tell a definitive history, but to suggest a new relationship to the past."

This exhibition engages themes related to social justice, the mass production and distribution of DIY visual media, and how artistic interpretation plays a role in our relationship with history. The GVSU Library subject guides listed below and the databases list under "Additional Resources" help you find articles related to these themes. Download the Learning Guide (right) for more information about these themes.

Can't make it to the gallery? Then take a virtual tour of the exhibit while maintaining safe social distancing practices.

Subject Guides

cover of learning guide for celebrating people's history poster series exhibition

Learning Guide
(click to open in new window and download)

Activities & Events

The activities and events linked below were created specifically for this exhibition, and engage a variety of themes, creative processes and media related to the artwork and artists in the exhibition. They are still available via the links below.

Make Your Own Poster with this guided DIY activity available online and on campus click to learn more

Make your own poster inspired by the Celebrate People's History program.
Click for a downloadable template and step-by-step instructions!

View past Live from the Gallery talks on our YouTube channel.

Additional Resources

Additional Reading / Viewing

A People's History for the Classroom by Bill Bigelow and Howard Zinn
After the Protests Are Heard: Enacting Civic Engagement and Social Transformation by Sharon D. Welch
History Teaches Us to Resist: How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times by Mary Frances Berry
TED Talk: The Urgency of Intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw

Get Involved On Campus

Attend a Fall 2020 Democracy 101 virtual event through the Community Service Learning Center
Join a Registered Student Organization
Connect with a GVSU Social Justice Center

Research & Writing Resources

Databases

Alt-PressWatch This link opens in a new window: Alt-PressWatch showcases unique, independent voices from some of our nation's most respected and cited grassroots newspapers, magazines, and journals. The database features over 670,000 articles from more than 210 publications, offering a wide range of unfettered, critical coverage of the news.
America: History and Life: The premier database for research on the history of the United States and Canada.
American Indian Experience: Is a full-text resource exploring the histories and contemporary cultures of the indigenous peoples of the United States featuring more than 150 volumes, hundreds of primary documents, and thousands of images.
Art Abstracts and Retrospective: Art Full Text and Retrospective indexes more than 500 worldwide publications covering the fine, decorative and commercial arts, crafts and media as far back as 1929.
ARTstor: ARTstor is a digital library of nearly one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
Daily Life Through History: Provides a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary resource that supports history, social studies, English, and language students. It moves seamlessly from past to present, providing context for contemporary life and culture. The content is enhanced with new books, articles, images, maps, primary documents, and more on a regular cycle.
GenderWatch: Provides authoritative historical and current perspectives on the evolution of gender roles as they affect both men and women.
GVSU Visual Resources Library (GLEAN©): The GVSU Visual Resources Library is the Department of Visual and Media Arts Collection consisting of more than 260,000 digital images to support teaching and learning in art and design. To access the collection from off-campus, please contact the Visual Resources Library at [email protected] or (616)331-3644 for username and password.
International Bibliography of Art (IBA): The International Bibliography of Art (IBA) is the successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA). It includes the subject areas of fine arts, archaeology, museum studies, classical studies, and architecture. This resource has an international scope with over 60% of content from non-English publications. Date coverage: 2008-present.
Oxford Art Online: Oxford Art Online is an art reference library that searches Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, and The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. This resource contains images, biographies, subject entries, and thematic timelines.

Art Gallery

Celebrate People's History

Posters, Artists, and Featured Stories

About the Curator

Key Themes & Research Tools

Recommended Reading

Activities & Events

Additional Resources

More from the GVSU Art Gallery & Permanent Collection

Location

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