July 25th 2023.
Gary Tyler spent more than four decades of his life behind bars after being falsely accused of murdering a white student in 1974. After almost 42 years imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Tyler held his first solo art exhibition in Detroit, sponsored by Library Street Collective.
The exhibition, titled “We are the Willing”, was curated by Allison Glenn. Tyler’s work features self-portraits of his time in prison, made from textiles and appliqué quilts, which provide a glimpse into his transformation from a young teenager to a man in prison. According to World Socialist Web Site, Tyler learned appliqué patterning in prison.
The exhibition title was taken from the motto of the Angola Prison drama club, which Tyler served as president for 28 years. While incarcerated, Tyler turned to the arts to get through his time in prison and now, as a free man, he's using his skills to fight injustice.
In 1974, the false accusation of murder left Tyler as Louisiana’s youngest death row inmate at the age of 16. At the time, a group of white students had been throwing items at a bus of black students, which had been bussed over to Destrehan High School due to a desegregation order. A gunshot fired from outside the bus killed the white youth, but police framed Tyler, despite him being inside the bus at the time of the gunshot. Although the Supreme Court did away with the death sentence in 1976, Tyler remained in prison for 41 and a half years. It was only in 2016 that he was finally released.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
