'Painting the Past Alive' in Arkansas 180 Video

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John Newman with mural at Kansas City Kansas Community College.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – “Painting the Past Alive,” an Arkansas 180 video, follows University of Arkansas art professor John Newman as he paints a mural depicting the African American slaves who crossed the Missouri River to freedom in Quindaro, Kan. Quindaro, a port community founded by Wyandotte Indians during the Civil War, was the only stop on the Underground Railroad between Missouri and Kansas.

John Newman at work.

Newman was commissioned by Kansas City Kansas Community College to paint the mural to commemorate this little-known stop on the Underground Railroad, which exists in ruins now at the edge of Kansas City, Kan. The mural’s story is presented on three large panels showing fugitive slaves approaching the river on the Missouri side, making the hazardous crossing to Kansas and later living in the prosperous town of Quindaro.

The video shows the mural in place at the college and includes comments from guests at its unveiling, many of whom said the artist had brought the people and past alive.

Newman is an associate professor of art in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. He is the 2010 recipient of the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education Distinguished Cultural Award, given to those individuals whose body of work has documented the Black American experience through exemplary creative or scholarly endeavors.