Visible but Voiceless: How Black Presence in Mid-Century Public Art Revealed—and Concealed—Power

Union Passenger Terminal Mural. Conrad Albrizio.

At New Orleans’ Union Passenger Terminal, travelers are greeted by a grand, sweeping series of murals that attempt to capture the entire sweep of Louisiana’s history. Painted in 1954 by Conrad Albrizio, these four panels — The Age of Exploration, The Age of Colonization, The Age of Struggle, and The Modern Age — are vibrant, saturated, and dense with historical symbolism. Among the most striking features of these murals is the presence of Black figures: enslaved workers, Civil War soldiers, and modern-day musicians and laborers. Their inclusion is bold for its time. But what does it mean to be included in a story without controlling its telling?

This question lies at the heart of how African Americans were depicted in mid-century public art. Albrizio’s murals made Black lives visible in a high-traffic public space during Jim Crow. That alone is significant. Yet the depiction often comes with caveats: Black people are present, but not centered. Their agency is minimal, their roles functional, and their emotional worlds largely unreadable. It is a case of being seen, but not fully heard.

The murals were part of a broader post-war modernization project under Mayor Chep Morrison, who sought to rebrand New Orleans as a forward-looking city. The Union Passenger Terminal was a sleek, new symbol of that vision, and Albrizio’s art was its crown jewel. But modernization, as imagined by city planners and muralists alike, still operated within a framework of racial hierarchy and white authorship. What was progressive by 1950s standards may now feel, to today’s viewer, incomplete or romanticized.

Contrast Albrizio’s murals with those of his Black contemporaries. Hale Woodruff’s Amistad Murals and John T. Biggers’s work at Texas Southern University did not merely include Black subjects—they empowered them. Their murals depicted rebellion, self-determination, cultural richness, and spiritual power. These artists weren’t just illustrating history; they were reclaiming it. In comparison, Albrizio’s work, though masterful in craft, often cast Black figures as passive participants in someone else’s narrative.

Hale Woodruff’s Amistad Murals (1939) empowered Black resistance—art as reclamation rather than illustration.

Art historians like Claudia Kheel have noted that Albrizio’s murals "celebrate diversity in a way that glosses over oppression." This is not a unique shortcoming. It reflects a broader trend in American public art of the era, where racial inclusion often substituted for racial truth. The goal was harmony, not confrontation; unity, not complexity. In doing so, these works shaped public memory in ways that left entire truths untold.

John T. Biggers’s work at Texas Southern University centered African American spirituality, leadership, and legacy.

And yet, the murals endure. Their durability is not just material, as conservators like Elise Grenier note, but symbolic. They offer a starting point—a visual archive of how far the conversation has come and how far it still must go. They challenge us to ask: What stories are being told here, and who is doing the telling?

At the Northeast Louisiana Delta African-American Heritage Museum, our mission is to amplify the fullness of Black experience. That includes not just celebrating explicitly Black-created art, but interrogating the ways Black people have been rendered in public works by others. Albrizio’s murals give us an opportunity to reflect on presence without power, and why narrative control matters.

We believe that public art should not only reflect who was there—but who speaks. Let this be an invitation to see the brushstrokes differently. The murals at Union Terminal deserve our attention not just for their beauty, but for the silences they carry.

Further Reading & Resources:

• The Frescoes of Conrad Albrizio by Carolyn Bercier

• Hale Woodruff: 50 Years of His Art by Amalia Amaki

• John T. Biggers: My America by Olive Jensen Theisen

• On-site tours of the Union Passenger Terminal murals available via Amtrak New Orleans