Panel 15

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility . . . —17 September 1787, Panel 15, 1955, Inscription: “CREATION”, Jacob Lawrence, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Francis H. Burr Memorial Fund, Richard Norton Fund, Henry George Berg Bequest Fund, Anonymous Fund in memory of Henry Berg, and Alpheus Hyatt Fund, 1995.23, © 2019 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Read Closer

Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, the Constitution seen here is the world’s longest surviving written charter of government. Its first three words—“We the People”—affirm that the U.S. government exists to serve all citizens. However, in September 1955, as Lawrence painted this panel, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) published this executive note in the New York Times that documented the ceremonial hearing in which citizens voiced constitutional violations as the country celebrated the 168th anniversary of the Constitution’s signing.

Excerpt from the Constitutional Convention, Constitution of the United States, General Records of the United States Government, 1778-2006, National Archives Catalog, National Archives

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Constitutional Convention, Constitution of the United States, General Records of the United States Government, 1778-2006, National Archives Catalog, National Archives
Harrison E. Salisbury, “Citizens Go to Capitol on Constitution Day to Tell of Abuses of Rights; ABUSES OF RIGHTS TOLD TO SENATORS,” New York Times, September 18, 1955. © The New York Times Company

Look Closer

Junius Brutus Stearns’s painting represents the civilian George Washington’s role as president of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He is seen urging passage of a new federal constitution, a draft of which he holds. For his Struggle painting, Lawrence evoked the collective political struggle among 13 men—symbolizing the number of states they represented during four months of intense work on the document.

Junius Brutus Stearns, Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention, 1856, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
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