Together We Stand

Created in 1997, Together We Stand is one of Samella Lewis’s most ambitious lithographs. A multigenerational group gathers around a banner carrying words from Maya Angelou’s poem “Our Grandmothers.” The text and figures function together: the work is at once an image of assembly and a public declaration.

The banner does not operate as a decorative quotation. Angelou’s poem speaks through an enslaved woman instructing her children not to be undone by violence and injustice. Lewis places those words inside a community of adults and a young girl, shifting the image from individual portraiture toward memory carried collectively across generations.

Institutional interpretation

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art holds an impression and describes the work as a testimony to Lewis’s childhood in Louisiana under Jim Crow. LACMA’s curatorial record also notes that the young girl may represent Lewis herself and connects the image to the artist’s practice of representing women through their beliefs and convictions rather than conventional likeness alone.

Print and edition notes

The large horizontal sheet gives the gathering room to read as both family and public assembly. The 1997 lithograph was issued in an edition of 60 with additional artist’s proofs.

Artist: Dr. Samella Lewis
Medium: Lithograph
Date: 1997
Dimensions: 30.5 × 37.75 in.
Edition: 60 plus artist’s proofs
Presentation: Unframed