Monumental

In January of 1960, the graduating class of Southern University, Baton Rouge, a historically Black land-grant university, commissioned Hunt to create a public work for the campus. This was Hunt’s first public commission and signaled the beginning of a public art career. Marvin Robinson, student body president, hosted Hunt and his wife, Bettye, during a visit to campus to review the location selected for the sculpture. Two months later, inspired by sit-ins at a Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth’s lunch counter, students at Southern University staged sit-ins at local businesses and a Greyhound bus station. Over two days, seventeen students were arrested, held on excessive bonds, and eventually expelled. An estimated 3,500 students marched on the state’s capital in response to the arrests. 

Hunt was serving in the military in San Antonio when seventeen-year-old Mary Lillian Andrews, president of the local youth council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), wrote letters to downtown business owners demanding the integration of lunch counters or face protest actions. After a rally held by the NAACP, which Hunt and his wife attended, downtown businesses agreed to integrate their counters on March 16, 1960, a day before demonstrations were set to begin. The businesses insisted that Andrews bring a light-colored friend with her. Other Black patrons faced verbal harassment. 

With an invitation from San Antonio architect Allison Peery and his wife Mimi, Hunt entered the San Antonio Woolworth’s lunch counter and was served with his friends without incident. San Antonio was the first Southern city to integrate its lunch counters voluntarily. Boundary-breaking baseball star Jackie Robinson called the San Antonio effort an example for the nation. 

In May, Hunt’s Spirit Ascending was unveiled at Southern University’s Commencement. Marvin Robinson, in jail and expelled from campus, could not attend his own graduation or the unveiling. In December 1961, the US Supreme Court overturned the convictions of sit-in protestors, adding energy to the sit-in movement. Spirit Ascending was destroyed during a protest the following school year. Today, Hunt has over 160 public artworks installed nationwide, more than any other American sculptor.

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