Amina

Original - Oil on canvas
Size: 24" x 30"

This oil on canvas is a portrait of Amina and her child, Wasila with a background of stones that were to take her life. Nestled within the stones is the biblical quote from John 8:7 “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

As The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan once said, “Wherever Black people on this planet suffer, our goal should be to see our wounds healed, the damage repaired and all Black people free to bring again to the world what we originally brought, which was the light of knowledge and advanced civilization.”

In 2002, Amina Lawal was to be sentenced to death by being buried up to her waist and stoning her until she was dead by a regional court in Katsina State, Nigeria for having sex outside marriage resulting in a child. It was irrelevant that her husband had divorced her and sent her back home to her parents and that it was his brother that raped her claiming that he would marry her. This case was one of several that created an international storm. News media attention was focused on her case and even featured and discussed on the Oprah T.V. show. Petitions were signed and emailed around the world in her support resulting in pressure for the court in 2003 to void her adultery case. It was a victory for dignity and fundamental human rights.
I was so moved by the injustice of this case and the frustration of females being constantly taken as second class citizens in the majority of societies on this planet that I was inspired to paint this event.