Located in Thomas Paine Plaza, across the street from City Hall, Hank Willis Thomas’s All Power to All People was a public art intervention that dealt with racial identity and representation in Philadelphia. The artist’s Afro pick sculpture, standing eight feet tall and weighing close to eight hundred pounds, was installed not far from pop artist Claes Oldenburg’s monumental Clothespin and Paint Torch, Jacques Lipchitz’s Government of the People, and Zenos Frudakis’s statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo.

According to Thomas,

The origin of the Afro pick dates back to the time of ancient Egyptians as an article of status and cultural belonging. The clenched black fist comb in particular is associated with the 1970s Black Power Movement. As an accessory of a hairstyle, it represented counterculture and civil rights during one of the most important eras of American history. It exists today as many things to different people; it is worn as adornment, a political emblem, and signature of collective identity. The Afro pick continues to develop itself as a testament to innovation. This piece serves to highlight ideas related to community, strength, perseverance, comradeship, and resistance to oppression.

Installed the same month as the city’s Octavius Catto statue (the first monument in Philadelphia dedicated to a historic person of color on public land), and amid public debates about the Frank Rizzo statue, Willis’s temporary monument prompted conversations about equal justice and civic belonging. Thomas has deep family connections to Philadelphia, including his maternal grandmother, Ruth, who was a beautician in North Philadelphia; his mother, Deborah, a celebrated archivist and professor of African American photography; and his father, Hank, a jazz musician and former Black Panther. The artwork’s name derives from a rallying call popularized in speeches by Black Panther Party activist Fred Hampton, who was later murdered in a raid by local and federal authorities in Chicago.

All Power to All People was recognized by the Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network Year in Review as one of the top 50 outstanding public art projects from across the country in 2017.

Artist Statement