Truth Tellers
Visual Arts (collection)
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57m
Directed by Richard Kane • Documentary • 2021 • 58 minutes
What defines a great American? For artist/activist Robert Shetterly, it's a citizen who courageously confronts issues of social, environmental and economic fairness. Shetterly has painted 270 portraits of such Americans, past and present, with a quote inscribed into the dark background. These "Americans Who Tell the Truth" have been exhibited throughout the United States for almost two decades.
Truth Tellers is both a story of Shetterly's art and activism and a history lesson in what it means to be a citizen of a democracy. In bringing Shetterly's message to a wide audience, Truth Tellers will spark a national conversation on truth telling.
Shetterly's subjects include contemporary activists for racial and indigenous justice Zyahna Bryant, Reggie Harris, Maulian Dana, Sherri Mitchell and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, and climate activists Bill McKibben, Kelsey Juliana, and Bill Bigelow. Shetterly's portraits place them in the context of our great civil rights leaders John Lewis, Frederick Douglass, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin, Sojourner Truth, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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