A Benediction, By Eleanor Bader
The Brooklyn Rail, December 2005-January 2006, Online Newspaper Archives
The mural can best be described as breathtaking. Thirteen women are rendered in seven-by-eight foot panels: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm; Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day; teacher/writer/organizer Angela Davis; feminists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem; The Guerilla Girls; anarchist Emma Goldman; civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer; farm worker leader Dolores Huerta; unionist Clara Lemlich; writer Audre Lorde; Native American activist Wilma Mankiller; and suffragist Alice Paul. Other women, including Cindy Sheehan, Pacifica radio’s Amy Goodman, actors Uta Hagen and Ruby Dee, Eleanor Roosevelt and attorney Sarah Weddington—while visually smaller—join Benedict in a colorful celebration of female militance.