Illustrating Southern Labor History; A Newly Completed Project
A little background
At the end of 2025, the Beehive Design Collective, an artist/activist collective which I was a member of for several years, got a request from an organization in the South to create a large scale illustration about historical labor organizing events that occurred in the Southern US. They wanted the graphic to be in a similar style as the Beehive used to create- large, highly detailed illustrations that tell complex stories about social, environmental, and economic justice issues that have a vast reach. I had already drawn an illustration in this style in 2017 with a friend of mine entitled Water Ways, that told the multi-faceted story of the impacts of the fracking industry in the Mid-Atlantic. These types of illustrations are meant to be printed as large mural-sized banners and used in educational presentations.
So when the Beehive got this request last fall, someone in the group suggested that I take on the project. Intrigued, I took a meeting with the organization and found out that Labor South is a new org based out of Durham, NC who specialize in labor organizing history and training. They wanted to create this illustration to be a teaching tool they could use in both worker trainings and in educational settings. I signed on to the project immediately. I fully believe in these projects' ability to convey important stories and encourage those facing similar struggles.
Story gathering
We started the project by hosting a 3-day retreat attended by the organizers, historians, lawyers, and invested supporters of Labor South. I worked with my community organizing friend Joanne Douglas to plan a comprehensive interactive retreat that utilized Popular Education models of information sharing.
Through a weekend of activities, the group shared their knowledge of five historic labor organizing events that we wanted to be represented in this piece. We also talked about how we, as a culture, got to the point where this level of organizing is necessary and what our hopes and dreams for the labor industry are. The weekend opened my eyes to many struggles that I only knew about in small ways before. I was moved by the bravery, perseverance, and people power represented in these movements.
We also ate incredible food all weekend, for which I was deeply grateful.
By the end of the retreat, we all had a much deeper understanding of what this illustration needed to include and a basic plan to do it.
The five historical labor organizing events we decided to focus on are:
1. The formation of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, which started in Arkansas in the 1930s
2. The Textile Strike of 1934 which spread throughout the Piedmont region of the US South
3. The formation of the National Domestic Workers Union of America in the 1950s and 1960s in Georgia
4. The Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike in 1968 in Tennessee
5. The Justice@Smithfield Campaign in the early 2000s in Eastern North Carolina
The First Steps
The above image is the first brainstorming image I created where I planned out what scenes would go in what part of the illustration. I call it a wireframe. This helped me develop the basic graphic composition. Each little bundle of text in the image above describes the scene that I would eventually draw in that place. It was a great way to conceptualize the scope of the piece and hash out some of the details.
Once the wireframe was finalized, I started sketching each of the scenes. The whole illustration contains about 175 individual characters who are all based on historical people or communities and was being represented by an anthropomorphic animal. This meant that each character required a lot of research. What is that character trying to portray? What attitude should it have? What period-appropriate clothing, hat, and tools will it have with it? How does it connect with the characters around it?
Depicting the full cast of characters as animals was done for a number of reasons. First, while we are telling stories that are mostly human-centric, the impact of these events affect the earth and all who live here. The animals depicted in this image all live in the Southern US and we wanted to give them visibility here. Another thing it does is helps us process very intense and sometimes quite violent stories. Each of the 5 events we talk about here have violent aspects to them. While we aren't shying away from depicting these scenes, the emotional blow can be somewhat softened with the animals, keeping the viewer engaged and moving through the story. One struggle we had with depicting animals is that we needed to discuss the racial components of each event. We decided to represent these differences through diverse species. You can read more about these choices in the accompanying zine that comes with the paper poster.
Sketching the entire piece took about a month. Many of the scenes went through revisions to make them as historically accurate as possible and to tell the story in the clearest way. No detail was too precious to be erased and changed in order the make the piece the best it could be.
Once the sketch was approved by all parties involved, I took it to the Athenæum, a historic facility here in Philly that scans large documents. With the scanned piece, I was able to print a larger version, which became my reference while I inked the final piece.
However, I needed to go through my own artistic horror story first. The day after I scanned the sketch, it was laying on the table in my studio that is about 4 feet away from a window that I had cracked about 2 inches at the top to get the slightest bit of air flow going. Maybe you can see where this is going. While downstairs eating lunch, the skies opened and the wind kicked into high gear, pummeling sheets of sideways rain against the side of the house. Within 2 minutes, I was upstairs slamming the window shut and staring in horror at my sketch that I had just spent months developing. The paper was destroyed. It had immediately rippled and pocked so much that I'm not even sure how I would rectify it.
Did I cry? I mean, wouldn't you? I sobbed. I knew that I didn't technically need that original sketch anymore since I had - LUCKILY - already scanned it in. But I still bent over my work and added tears to the already soaked surface. Not to be dramatic or anything.
Anyways... I moved on.
Tools I used (see above image):
- Rulers to help me draw the few strait lines within the piece (there aren't many)
- Pentel .07 mechanical pencil for sketching
- A regular #2 pencil- I really just used the eraser because it’s really good
- Zebra Micro eraser- this helped me erase tiny lines in tiny spaces
- Kneaded eraser- I used this to ghost-out pencil lines and re-draw them in a more precise manner. If that doesn’t make sense to you, take one of my classes some time!
- Sakura Micron felt tipped pen and brushes- I used a wide variety of thicknesses to ink. From the ultra-thin 003 pen to the wider brushes and graphic pens.
- White gloves with a few fingers cut off- I wore these on my drawing hand to protect the paper from my natural skin oils. These oils can change the top layer of your paper and not allow the ink to absorb into the fibers properly, which can create an inconsistent look across the page.
Inking also took about a month. The final piece is about 30”x40”. While inking, I created a system for which pen thicknesses to use in which parts. This helped me create a uniform look throughout the whole piece.
While the original Beehive graphics are mostly black and white, Labor South requested that this piece be colored with a limited palette that reflected the red tones of the earth in the South. I created a 12-color palette that I stuck to strictly.
Creating this type of project is what I live for. I was so grateful to work with Labor South's enthusiastic staff and supporters and coordinate with the current Beehive Design Collective members to move this project along. As a visual, non-linear learner and thinker, these illustrations and the accompanying zines and workshops are an amazing way to take in and digest these historical events. I am so happy to be able to continue this tradition, making this information accessible on various levels.
This final piece is printed on 19"x24" paper. Copies are available at justseeds.org/. Each poster comes with an accompanying zine that goes vignette by vignette to tell the main points of each story. It is also printed on a large banner that Labor South will be touring with in years to come. Keep a look out for touring dates on their website for the coming year!
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