New museum exhibit in Kansas City emphasizes civil rights

(AP) — Missouri native and artist Sonié Joi Ruffin motions to the artwork behind her: a bronze statue of Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet, a handwritten copy of the Emancipation Proclamation on papyrus and a penciled canvas peppered with the N-word.

Discovering the Civil Rights Journey Through Visual and Musical Expression, a new exhibition at the museum.

The show is set up in chronological order of the civil rights movement, starting with slavery and ending with Black Lives Matter, and features pieces by local and national artists.

Kansas City, Kan., native Ed Dwight has several bronze sculptures in the exhibit, including Birth of Jazz, ''Ray Charles and Dirt Farmers, which is modeled after his grandparents, who were slaves.

Dwight says he didn't start making art for a living until his 40s, but he estimates he has 18,000 pieces in galleries and 127 memorial pieces.

"Charles has a very intelligent way of taking color and pen and bringing you to the contemporary stage of the African-American story as it pertains to music," Ruffin says.

Shepherd says he wanted to show how it would look if black people carried the hateful signs that white protesters carried in the 1950s.

Shepherd's "Welcome to the Club" shows a different side of the African-American experience, with men and women at a jazz club enjoying the music and the atmosphere.

Michelle Beasley, also from Kansas City, says Shepherd's use of vivid color inspired her own acrylic paintings.

Ruffin says jazz music and the civil rights movement united, and much of the jazz music thrived in Kansas City.

Ruffin says sports followed music into the civil rights movement, but education has been slow to adapt.