Charles E. ‘Chuck’ Siler, activist, artist and cartoonist, dies
29th August 2022 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
Charles E. “Chuck” Siler lived as a famed artist, illustrator, writer, activist, and cultural presenter whose professional background included curatorial services and programming for museums, cultural centers, and academic institutions. “He often described his interests and work as pluridisciplinary,” says Rhonda J. Miller, Siler’s wife of 35 years.
The world lost one of this era’s “greatest” political cartoonists on July 17, 2022, when Chuck Siler, 79, died of a heart attack. The long-time cartoonist for The Louisiana Weekly “was sketching up to the day we went to the hospital,” Miller remembers.
A New Orleans memorial is forthcoming for Siler, whose artistic contributions are evergreen and civil rights activism historic.
As Hurricane Katrina barreled toward New Orleans, Siler took this family to Carrollton, Texas, where they’ve lived for the past 17 years.
James B. Borders, an actor, independent journalist, and event producer, collaborated with Siler on several artistic projects. The two met when Siler was Division Information Representative and Programs Coordinator for the Division of Black Culture, a section of the Louisiana Dept. of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism.
“Chuck had a golden voice. He was incredibly talented. He was wonderful at narrating documentaries and radio programs,” says Borders a former editor of The Black Collegian Magazine and investor and former editor of The New Orleans Tribune. Siler’s rich baritone can be heard on many National Public Radio documentaries as well as the popular PBS films and the Mardi Gras favorite – “All On A Mardi Gras Day,” by the late documentarian Royce Osborn.
Borders says “Chuck’s consistency” was a hallmark of his artistry, “He kept churning out art until the end.” He lauded Siler’s ability to invoke emotion and energy through his political cartoons. Siler possessed a great sense of humor, Border adds, that he incorporated into his political punditry:
“He was one of the great cartoonists of this era,” says Borders. Siler was a “path-breaker and path-maker,” Borders adds. “He always found a way to support and be supportive for artists.”
Kathy Hambrick agrees. The River Road African-American Museum founder says, “Were it not for Chuck Siler, there wouldn’t be a River Road African-American Museum.”
When Hambrick, a New Orleans native, left IBM in California and settled in Ascension Parish, she knew nothing about museums but dreamed of a place to educate visitors about the history and culture of African-Americans in the river parishes.
So Hambrick consulted with Louisiana’s first African-American professional curator. “When I told Chuck about my idea in 1992, his face lit up. He took me under his wing,” and educated her in the museum arts.
More than just a mentor, Siler connected Hambrick with Louisianans who made ground-breaking contributions to American museum history. Dr. Margaret Burroughs, a St. Rose native, founded the first African-American Museum in the United States, the DuSable Museum, and Harry Robinson, a Baton Rouge native, founded the Dallas African-American Museum, the first in Texas.
Siler linked Hambrick with Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Professor Emeritus of the Caribbean and Latin American history at Rutgers University. Hall authored many books on slavery and created the first Louisiana Slave Database and Louisiana Free Database. Dr. Ibrahim Seck, the co-founder of the Whitney Plantation Museum, also became a mentor.
Hambrick was using her own money to sustain the state’s first African-American Museum, so Siler set up a meeting for Hambrick with former Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Melinda Schwegmann. Her office funded the Museum’s promotional materials.
Siler introduced Hambrick to the National Association of African-American Museums. The association’s membership comprises Black Museum curators and professionals at 125 museums. Hambrick later served as its president. Today, the River Road African-American Museum in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, is in its 28th year, thanks to invaluable help from Siler.
Siler is a Baton Rouge native who studied fine arts at Southern University. While at Southern, he became a humorist, political cartoonist, and staffer for Southern Digest.
He moved to Los Angeles after college and worked as a Hollywood set designer. His first project was for The American Theatre of Being’s production of “The Loudest Noise in the World” by Vincent Williams. While in the City of Angels, Uncle Sam drafted Siler into the U.S. Army, where his work as a war correspondent in Vietnam sharpened Siler’s writing, interviewing, and public affairs skills.
When Siler returned to Baton Rouge, he became Sports Information Director and assistant public contacts director at Southern University. His wife, Rhonda Miller or as Siler would call her, his “fellow warrior,” says Siler, “loved to reminisce about his work publicizing the skills and talents of future NFL Hall of Famers Mel Blount and Harold Carmichael as well as Olympian Rod Milburn.”
In 1971, he returned to California, working for Black Associated Sports Enterprises, Inc. (BASE), the producers of the Grambling College Football Highlight Show. Siler scripted and directed a particular segment of the documentary “Grambling Takes It All Back Home.” He also wrote and produced cartoons and illustrations for several publications, including Soul, Soul Illustrated, The Soul and Jazz Record. One of his most widely viewed illustrations is a black and white sketch used in Billboard magazine’s “The Saga of Michael Jackson” 1984 special edition. It was seen by more than six million readers worldwide.
Returning to Baton Rouge in 1984, Siler assisted in the development of many of the state’s African American museums, cultural centers, and festivals as the Division Information Representative and Program Coordinator for the Division of Black Culture, a section of the Louisiana Dept. of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.
After the Black Culture division was phased out, Siler joined the staff of the Louisiana State Museum as Curator of Public Programs in New Orleans. While there, he developed several major exhibits – The Sojourners at the Museum of the Americas (New Orleans); Capturing the Flash: African American Artists View the Black Indians of New Orleans at the La State Museum; and a traveling exhibit, “An Artistic Sojourn Through the Afro-Louisiana Experience.” Siler also created the famous “Music at the Mint” series featuring music legends Alvin Batiste, Ellis Marsalis, Harold Batiste, Michael White, Henry Butler, Sam Henry, Kidd Jordan, Raful Neal, Henry Gray, Tabby Thomas, and Harold Brown, among others.
A popular part of this series was several Poetry Jams that featured, Kalamu ya Salaam and The Word Band, Arturo (Arthur Pfister), and Louisiana’s current Poet Laureate, Mona Lisa Saloy.
His love of music led him to narrate the award-winning radio documentaries produced by David Kunian, currently the Music Curator for the New Orleans Jazz Museum at the Old U.S. Mint. Siler narrated “Meet All Your Fine Friends at the Dew Drop Inn,” “Guitar Slim,” and “James Black: Guardian of the Groove.”
Siler also helped preserve and pass down the “Black Masking” traditions. Every Carnival season, various Black tribes “Mask Indian” parade through the streets. The ceremony honors the bond and shared legacy of enslaved people who escaped slavery and lived among Louisiana’s native tribes.
Siler tapped “Big Chief” Ferdinand Bigard to conduct workshops to teach children beadwork. He also did the artwork for Sunpie Barnes’ album.
As a cultural presenter, Siler’s focus was Louisiana’s African roots. Miller says his favorite cultural presentations occurred at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. For 17 years, he helped coordinate the African Heritage stage and did not hesitate when asked to be an interviewer for the Allison Minor Music stage. Siler also prepared lectures at the Louisiana Folklife Festival and the National Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Siler is renowned for his artistic endeavors, but few know of his civil rights and voting rights activism.
“There was a disturbance in the force of racism,” Siler wrote in “Fifty Years Ago,” a 2010 memoir. Reflecting on his participation in the Civil Rights Movement, Siler names May 26, 1960, as an important day in his life. That day, Chuck decided to address the separate and unequal climate in Louisiana after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed legal segregation.
As a volunteer library assistant at McKinley High, Chuck knew the school’s library lacked the books to properly educate students. He’d seen the school librarians dig into their pockets to buy books. Their support made a small dent in the library’s book cache.
Conversely, the State Library’s vast holdings could expand students’ education, but the taxpayer-funded library refused to issue library cards to Black students.
Chuck and several senior classmates from Baton Rouge’s McKinley High School planned a protest. They risked not graduating to picket the library.
During a Civil Rights Project interview for the Smithsonian and Library of Congress, Siler discusses his art and the events that shaped his civil/voting rights activism:
“Charles Siler remembers his early life in Louisiana, including a penchant for drawing that began before the age of two, quitting the Boy Scouts when his troop made black Scouts walk behind the horses in a local parade, and picketing Louisiana’s segregated State Library as a senior in high school.
“He was eventually expelled from Southern University because of his activism. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was drafted in 1967 and served in the military in the Vietnam War. He continued his civil rights advocacy as he took a variety of positions at cultural institutions and began a career as a cartoonist. The interview closes with Siler’s reflections on identity and the process of learning from those who are ideologically different.”
In Carrollton, Texas, Siler continued his artistry. He presented lectures on New Orleans’ culture. Siler also hosted exhibits after the hurricane that focused on his evacuation experience. “Rhythm n’ Hues and Katrina’s Blues,” was exhibited at the Southern Univer-sity Museum of Art in Baton Rouge and the Black Heritage Gallery in Lake Charles, La.
More recently, Siler authored essays on African American artistic culture and aesthetics. One of his essays—“SAPC Accessories As Art, Or Is It Vice Versa? History and Overview from an Artist’s Perspective,” – appeared in the 2018 collection “Freedom Dance: Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans,” by photographer Eric Waters and Karen Celestan.
A second essay – “Black Art in Baton Rouge: Reflections and Aesthetics,” – is forthcoming in Blacks in the Red Stick: African American Presence in Baton Rouge.
Siler’s latest political cartoon appeared in The Louisiana Weekly in July 2022.
Beyond their professional relationship, Hambrick described Siler as a man who loved the black culture and black people. She affirms, “He was a man who never hesitated to mentor and advise others and facilitated their projects.”
“Chuck was the truth. He spoke the truth and lived the truth,” Hambrick mused.
Rhonda Miller offers this reflective portrait of her husband:
“My soul mate believed in truth, justice, activism, reading, staying informed, and always having good laugh,” said Miller.
“He was an antiracist. He did not believe in the concept of “race” but understood that racism based on the idea of white supremacy and the inferiority of others must be consistently fought, and he loved to make this point in his cartoons,” she said.
The coupled shared one son, Daniel L. Miller.
To find out more about Chuck Siler, hear from the man himself as he discusses his life during the Smithsonian Division of African-American Culture and Library of Congress Oral History Project Interview on May 10, 2013, in Carrollton, Texas: https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669185/
This article originally published in the August 29, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
