Freedom Wall - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 12:16, 9 August 2026

2026-08-09T12:16:47Z

Spider of Destiny: /* Names on the list (from top to bottom) */

2026-08-08T15:39:17Z

Names on the list (from top to bottom)

Spider of Destiny: Created page with "The Freedom Wall in Chicago. '''Freedom Wall''' was an art installation, made by artist Adam Brooks. Inaugurated in Augus..."

2026-08-08T14:11:02Z

Created page with "900px|thumb|right|The Freedom Wall in Chicago. '''Freedom Wall''' was an art installation, made by artist Adam Brooks. Inaugurated in Augus..."

New page

[[File:Freedom Wall, Chicago.jpg|900px|thumb|right|The Freedom Wall in Chicago.]]

'''Freedom Wall''' was an art installation, made by artist Adam Brooks. Inaugurated in August 1994, <ref>https://chicagoreader.com/news/zoom-in-river-north/</ref> it was located at 325 W. Huron Street in River North in [[Chicago]], Illinois, and consisted of a long black vinyl banner on a wall, featuring hand-painted names (painted by Bob Morales), one of them being Frank Zappa. Since 2022, the Freedom Wall is hidden by another building. <ref>https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/28-years-of-freedom-on-the-wall/</ref>

The work has no title, nor signature, but artist Adam Brooks explained the list of names are all people who represent the idea of ''"freedom"''. Brooks asked several of his friends and colleagues, but - to have some ideological balance - also asked political conservatives and civic teachers who polled their students to suggest names. He ended up with 800 different names, from which he selected the 69 names most frequently mentioned and included one space blank, representing the people who ''"didn't know what freedom was, or if it even existed."''<ref>https://chicagoreader.com/news/zoom-in-river-north/</ref>

The list of names features a blank line under the name ''Frank Zappa'''. Brooks explained: ''"I think six people responded saying that they really didn’t feel that one name could sufficiently embody the idea of freedom. And in fact, one respondent actually said she didn’t know what freedom was and seriously doubted that it existed. And so it was important to me to recognize the fact that actually some people refuse to participate. In hindsight, it also functioned as a space into which passersby could potentially, mentally, insert their own choice."''

==Names on the list (from top to bottom)==
* Martin Luther King, Jr.
* Abraham Lincoln
* Harriet Tubman
* Rosa Parks
* Nelson Mandela
* [[John F. Kennedy]]
* Susan B. Anthony
* Malcolm X
* Mahatma Gandhi
* George Washington
* Thomas Jefferson
* Thurgood Marshall
* [[Jesus]] Christ
* Cesar Chavez
* Sojourner Truth
* Margaret Sanger
* Moses
* Mother Theresa
* Dalai Lama
* [[Lenny Bruce]]
* [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]
* Ayn Rand
* [[John Lennon]]
* Noam Chomsky
* Harvey Milk
* Maya ANgelou
* Frederick Douglass
* Emma Goldman
* Anwar Sadat
* Eleanor Roosevelt
* Henry Thoreau
* Anita Hill
* Rush Limbaugh
* Rigoberta Menchu
* Geronimo
* Saul Alinsky
* Winston Churchill
* Anne Frank
* Bell Hooks
* Aung San Suu Kui
* John Stuart Mill
* [[Jimmy Carter]]
* [[James Joyce]]
* Jack Kevorkian
* [[Ronald Reagan]]
* Robert Mapplethorpe
* John Brown
* Ruth Bader Ginsburg
* [[Václav Havel]]
* [[Frank Zappa]]
* Carl Djerassi
* Ida B. Wells
* [[Galileo]]
* Johannes Gutenberg
* Stephen Biko
* Muhammad Ali
* Socrates
* William Blake
* [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]
* Barbara Jordan
* [[Buddha]]
* Elizabeth Cady Stanton
* [[Albert Einstein]]
* Wilma Mankiller
* Marian Wright Edelmann
* Marcel Duchamp
* Harold Washington
* Lucy Parsons
* Elie Wiesel

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:1994]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Zappa Phenomena]]

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 The work has no title, nor signature, but artist Adam Brooks explained the list of names are all people who represent the idea of ''"freedom"''. Brooks asked several of his friends and colleagues, but - to have some ideological balance - also asked political conservatives and civic teachers who polled their students to suggest names. He ended up with 800 different names, from which he selected the 69 names most frequently mentioned and included one space blank, representing the people who ''"didn't know what freedom was, or if it even existed."''<ref>https://chicagoreader.com/news/zoom-in-river-north/</ref>
-The list of names features a blank line under the name ''Frank Zappa'''. Brooks explained: ''"I think six people responded saying that they really didn’t feel that one name could sufficiently embody the idea of freedom. And in fact, one respondent actually said she didn’t know what freedom was and seriously doubted that it existed. And so it was important to me to recognize the fact that actually some people refuse to participate. In hindsight, it also functioned as a space into which passersby could potentially, mentally, insert their own choice."''
+The list of names features a blank line under the name '''Frank Zappa'''. Brooks explained: ''"I think six people responded saying that they really didn’t feel that one name could sufficiently embody the idea of freedom. And in fact, one respondent actually said she didn’t know what freedom was and seriously doubted that it existed. And so it was important to me to recognize the fact that actually some people refuse to participate. In hindsight, it also functioned as a space into which passersby could potentially, mentally, insert their own choice."''
 ==Names on the list (from top to bottom)==

@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 * Noam Chomsky
 * Harvey Milk
-* Maya ANgelou
+* Maya Angelou
 * Frederick Douglass
 * Emma Goldman