KTLA News: "Picket against discrimination at Los Angeles County Museum of Art" (1970)

do artists and members of the Black Arts Council held a demonstration today in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Boulevard they're here protesting what they say is discrimination in the museum what type of discrimination well we find that uh this museum is entirely uh misleading by its emphasis on Western Art and that is the the reason the raison Detra for this confrontation with the art establishment here uh at the Los Angeles County Museum because we feel that it refuses to recognize uh black art and that's what this uh protest is all about the absence of black art of black artists of black persons of minority persons in all of the entire uh of the many departments of this Museum [Music] [Music] [Music] last are you ready Dr Banks have that black art is not in the museum well if uh black R today is in the museum because we are paying homage to the cubis Epic in a brilliant show by Douglas cuper Cooper which and we know that c cubism is based on African sculpture but in terms of uh contemporary black art there isn't uh one piece in this Museum and this is a frustrating thing for minorities to come to this Museum which is attack sponsored and not to find one work of art by a black uh black artist Dr Lewis was involved here as a curator do you know the story behind her well Dr Cur uh Dr Lewis is one of the uh Pickers today and perhaps she can speak uh better for herself but I do know that she was hired here after uh a long deliberation uh with negotiations with the Board of Trustees as a curator in black art and to this day after one year in a hostile environment in this Museum she has chosen to resign because she finds that it's been impossible to function as she would like to in an artistic uh uh Manner and that is a reason for her resignation