Each of Edmonds’ paintings commemorates an American who lived — or lives — by those convictions. There’s Claudette Colvin, who, as a 15-year-old, refused to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama. There’s Omar ibn Said, an Islamic scholar from Senegal who was captured and enslaved in 1807 and wrote the only known Arabic autobiography by a slave in America. Other flags honor poet Lucille Clifton, the Iroquois Confederacy (the oldest known democracy in North America) and Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Somali American from Minnesota elected to the House last year.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 29, 2019 02:03 UTC