“'Bread for all, and Roses, too’—a slogan of the women in the West”The cry of suffragette Helen Todd, famously used by James Oppenheim in his poem Bread and Roses -- “Bread for all, and Roses, too” -- encompassed workers' need for wages beyond the subsistence level. The labor movement embraced the influential words, using it on picket signs, even becoming the catchwords of the 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Here, Hank Willis Thomas’ image of raised fists of all colors recalls the signage of the labor movement, a symbol of solidarity, resistance, and unity, while his title recalls the cumulative history invoked by the phrase. The work reflects Thomas’ signature framework of the visual trappings of mass media and culture in the service of art, with a nod to the historic.
