Digital image of American civil rights figures projected onto French Pantheon: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A digital, color image by D. Michael Cheers captures two images of Martin Luther King, Jr. projected onto the French Pantheon mausoleum during Josephine Baker’s induction into France’s Pantheon. Baker’s ceremonial cenotaph is placed in front of the mausoleum, draped in a French flag with a shadowbox display cased holding Baker’s military medals laid on top. The cenotaph is flanked by platforms with printed black-and-white and color images of Baker. On the left is a large screen displaying the projected mausoleum. Behind the screen is the siding of the building Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: November 30, 2021
• Photograph by: Duane Michael Cheers Ph.D, American, born 1953
• Subject of: Josephine Baker, American, 1906 - 1975
• Subject of: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., American, 1929 - 1968
• Type: digital media - born digital
• Medium: digital
• Dimensions: H x W: 4407 pixels × 6720 pixels
• Dimensions: File size: 17.44 MB
• Place depicted: Paris, France, Europe
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Activism
• Topic: Actors
• Topic: Civil Rights
• Topic: Funeral customs and rites
• Topic: International affairs
• Topic: Jazz (Music)
• Topic: Military
• Object number: 2022.50.3
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of D. Michael Cheers
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © D. Michael Cheers Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.