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New portrait honors Clyde Kennard, forgotten civil rights pioneer

After the terrorist attack on 9-11 and the nation’s response, anger and grief overwhelmed artist Robert Shetterly.

“It finally occurred to me that if I stopped obsessing about (then-Vice President) Dick Cheney and began surrounding myself with Americans I admired, I’d feel better,” he said. “I painted Walt Whitman, our essential democrat, then Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.”

His latest portrait is of an American he never knew before  — Clyde Kennard, whose portrait was unveiled Thursday night in the nation’s capital at an event sponsored by Teaching for Change and Americans Who Tell the Truth....

Read entire article at The Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi)