Justice, Agriculture & Industry

In 1910, a semicircular mural titled Justice, Agriculture & Industry was painted above a doorway at the end of the Great Hall of the building that is known today as the Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals.  Little is known about the painting or the artist who created it.  For reasons also unknown, in the 1920s and the decades that followed, nearly the entire surface of the mural was repainted.

In February 2021, the mural was covered from public view because of its racially prejudiced imagery.  Like many civic murals made in the early twentieth century, the painting depicts its higher-status figures as White and its lower-status figures as Black.  The two races are also physically segregated in the mural, which shows Black field workers in the left corner and White factory workers in the right corner.  The mural’s Black figures are shown doing lower-paid field work, while the White figures are shown doing higher-paid factory work.

The primary subject of the mural is a group of three White allegorical figures: Justice, Agriculture, and Industry.  Justice is enthroned in the center of the painting, holding in her right hand a pair of scales above a globe, and in her left hand an iron rod of authority.  Agriculture is depicted as a partially nude woman whose right hand rests upon a large basket of fruits and vegetables, while her left hand grasps the lip of a tin milk cannister.  She watches a group of field workers harvesting cotton.  Industry is symbolized by a shirtless man seated beside an anvil and holding blacksmithing tongs and a wheel.  He watches a group of steel workers, who forge beams for a new building (possibly the courthouse).  The dome of the Georgia State Capitol is visible in the background.