African-American Professor of Art Commissioned to Paint a Mural for Kansas City, Kansas Community College

John Newman, associate professor of art in the J. William Fulbright School of Arts and Sciences at the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, has been commissioned by the Kansas City, Kansas Community College Board of Trustees to paint a mural. The mural will be 39 feet long, with three 13-foot panels of oil on canvas. The painting will depict the antislavery activities of antebellum Kansas City residents. The Quindaro area of Kansas City, Kansas, was an important stop on the Underground Railroad for blacks escaping from the slave state of Missouri.

Professor Newman was chosen in part because he grew up in Kansas and was once a resident of Kansas City.

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