Judith F. Baca: Great Wall of Los Angeles: The 1970s- A Decade of Defiance and Dreams

In February 2026, SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) will return to Jeffrey Deitch to exhibit the latest complete segment in the expansion of The Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, fifty years after its initial production. The 1970s marked a pivotal decade of resistance, reckoning, and reimagining in the United States, and this segment of The Great Wall of Los Angeles captures the heartbeat of its most consequential movements. Beginning with the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, a reclamation of land and identity that reignited Indigenous activism, the latest complete section of the mural next unfolds in moments that echo across the prisons of America, where political prisoners like George Jackson and Angela Davis embody the era's radical resistance to state violence. Next, the mural depicts protestors marching in the 1970 Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, followed by interconnected uprisings reverberating across campuses from San Fernando Valley State College to Kent State. As Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" gives voice to a generation mourning its war dead and protesting systemic injustice, the mural shows new waves of artists and activists rising from refugee communities. The mural's overarching story is how art becomes a vehicle for testimony and transformation.