FOURTH SHOW

Freedom Fighters has since been adopted and augmented by Obsidian Arts in Minneapolis. The Miami Beach show is the fourth. For each installment, local artists are invited to select a historical figure and design a poster, often using vintage photographs and digital manipulation.

''I saw the show in New York and knew this was something other artists could participate in, giving them an opportunity to meditate on history and the history of images and figures,'' says Southall, who hopes to take the show to Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Detroit. ``We wanted them to really spend time with the notion of the black icon and black visual culture.''

Homestead artist Rodney Jackson, one of three South Florida artists participating, offers a composition of Malcolm X in sharply distinct phases: as Big Red, the hustler; as Malcolm X, the revolutionary, and as El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the spiritual leader.

''I wanted to take another look at how we perceive our African-American heroes and the evolution of Malcolm X, the legend. And I played up the Big Red chapter because it seemed the most compelling and exploitable and made for good storytelling,'' Jackson says. ``Throughout the process, I kept asking myself how do we portray and preserve the story with integrity but also realistically.''

Perhaps most important, because the exhibit forces a discourse on the role of cultural icons and the preservation and protection of their legacies, it becomes a social experiment that may split viewers along generational lines.

''There's always been a tradition in the African-American community of giving a special kind of respect to our historical figures, to our elders based on what they achieved and the barriers they broke down,'' says Charles K. Ross, director of the African American studies program at the University of Mississippi. ``And so there is little tolerance for putting any sort of spin or caricaturing those figures, especially among older African Americans. Some things, they believe, are simply off limits.''

TARGETING ICONS

Just turn to the episode of Aaron McGruder's animated television series The Boondocks, when Martin Luther King Jr. was portrayed using the N-word. Some blacks protested and demanded an apology. Similarly, a national debate ignited when a fictional character in the movie Barbershop was critical of King and Rosa Parks, revered as the mother of the civil-rights movement. Still, Ross sees power in the shifting or challenging of what we know about those icons so long as the end game is knowledge. In some ways, the vehicle is less important than the message.

''There are some freedoms and opportunities that this generation has been afforded that allow their perspective to be a bit different,'' says Ross, an associate professor of African-American studies and history. ``In this electronic age, this may be the manner to help some people understand or want to go out and learn more about history.''

Christopher Harrison, an abstract painter and mixed-media artist, reinterpreted the legend of Sojourner Truth for the Minneapolis show.

A history buff, Harrison was long enamored of Truth, born Isabella Baumfree, a public speaker and recruiter of black soldiers for the Union Army.

''She was willing to put it all on the line at a time when the society viewed her as subpar,'' Harrison says. ``Her bravery echoes through the decades.''

His poster shows a sepia-toned image of Truth in front of a wall of flames. The tagline screams: Oppression. Cruelty. Inequality. Can you face . . . the TRUTH.

Harrison envisions the art's bravado as a contemporary way to attract young viewers.

''Twenty years ago, this might have been considered offensive,'' he says. ``I don't think so now. As we go forward, we should try in every way to make our history as accessible to the next generation as we can. I am just trying to open another door. You can love it or hate it, but you cannot ignore it.''

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