Lifestyle
A prison art show at Lincoln's Cottage critiques presidents' penal law past
The Prison Reimagined: Presidential Portrait Project exhibition features artwork by incarcerated artists critiquing the U.S. justice system and is on display at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, D.C.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
The Prison Reimagined: Presidential Portrait Project exhibition features artwork by incarcerated artists critiquing the U.S. justice system and is on display at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, D.C.
Catie Dull/NPR
Caddell Kivett was watching the inauguration of President Biden on Jan. 20, 2021, when the thread of an idea began to form.
He was inspired by Amanda Gorman, who took the podium and read her poem The Hill We Climb, which says, in part:
“We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what ‘just’ is isn’t always justice. …”
It was then that he really started thinking, Kivett told NPR.
“Some of the words of that poem just really touched how I feel about our country,” he said.
And those feelings are complicated, to say the least.
Kivett, 53, is serving an 80-year prison sentence for assault-related charges.
He’s spent about 14 years incarcerated in North Carolina at the mercy of the U.S. criminal justice system and policies established by U.S. presidents, including Biden.
When the inauguration ceremony concluded, Kivett returned to his cell at Nash Correctional Institution in Nashville, N.C., where he’s been for the past eight years. He began to mull over a “kind of improbable idea” as the words of Gorman’s poem, “The norms and notions of what ‘just’ is isn’t always justice,” cycled through his mind.
He said he considered: What if there was a way to harness the voices of the incarcerated to critique this so-called justice system and to challenge the idea of what true justice in America could look like?
“Most people on the outside don’t know what is going on in here,” Kivett said. “And so, we just accept that this is how things are to be done and the correct response to people who commit harms or violence is to just lock them away.”
Caddell Kivett’s brainchild, Prison Reimagined: Presidential Portrait Project, launched at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, D.C., this month.
Tracey Thornton/Janie Ritter
hide caption
toggle caption
Tracey Thornton/Janie Ritter
He is surrounded by artists at Nash Correctional and considered ways to take that talent and use it to push forward these questions and ideas, he said.
These thoughts that started as just a flicker in his mind in 2021 took years and complex coordination with advocates from Justice Arts Coalition, such as founder and director Wendy Jason and programs assistant Janie Ritter, to come to fruition. But this month Kivett’s brainchild, an exhibit titled Prison Reimagined: Presidential Portrait Project, was revealed to the public at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, D.C.
The exhibit of 46 pieces of art and writing was curated by the Committee of Incarcerated Writers and Artists, whose members all currently live within the carceral system across the U.S. In addition to Justice Arts Coalition, a group that supports imprisoned artists, the exhibit was coordinated by staff at Lincoln’s Cottage.
The exhibit, which costs visitors between $4 and $10, will continue through Feb. 19. It may later head to a few more venues but that’s yet to be confirmed. The pieces, however, can be bought once the current exhibit has finished with all proceeds going directly to the artists.
The art pieces include different takes on portraits of U.S. presidents, among them Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and put these leaders’ records on criminal justice under the microscope.
The exhibition focuses on various presidents, including Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden (bottom left) and Richard Nixon.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
The exhibition focuses on various presidents, including Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden (bottom left) and Richard Nixon.
Catie Dull/NPR
The difficulties of coordinating the exhibit from behind bars
Wendy Jason is the founder and director of the Justice Arts Coalition in Takoma Park, Md.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
Wendy Jason is the founder and director of the Justice Arts Coalition in Takoma Park, Md.
Catie Dull/NPR
From the moment Kivett reached out to the Justice Arts Coalition in early 2021, the wheels started turning, even if slowly, and not without some hurdles. Ritter, nonetheless, worked to ensure that Kivett kept agency over the project.
“It was his idea. I wanted him to make the decisions,” she said. “And, of course, a lot of the decisions couldn’t be made from inside. They had to be facilitated outside.”
Discussing the framework of the project with one another was among the challenges because Kivett has limited ability to call or email from his cell. And the artists whom Ritter and Jason contacted to contribute to the project are located in prisons throughout the country and rely heavily on snail mail to correspond.
Watercolor paintings, mixed media collages and colored pencil portraits are now hanging in Lincoln’s Cottage.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
Watercolor paintings, mixed media collages and colored pencil portraits are now hanging in Lincoln’s Cottage.
Catie Dull/NPR
Gradually, the artists began sending in their work to the group’s headquarters in Takoma Park, Md.
To get these works to Kivett and his Committee of Incarcerated Artists and Writers at Nash, who were selecting the best pieces to exhibit, Ritter had to send 8-and-a-half-by-11 sized photos of all of each piece and copies of the written submissions.
“At the same time, our mail system here was going under a transformation from paper to digital, which created a whole new slew of hurdles for us to get past,” Kivett said.
Later on, Callie Hawkins, the executive director of Lincoln’s Cottage, sent a copy of their floor plan to guide the committee in choosing where to display each piece.
“It’s a massive space,” Hawkins said. “I was blown away by their ideas for placement and groupings. And literally all our team did was place it on the wall where they directed us to.”
Janie Ritter is the programs assistant for Justice Arts Coalition. She wanted to ensure Kivett kept agency over the exhibition.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
Janie Ritter is the programs assistant for Justice Arts Coalition. She wanted to ensure Kivett kept agency over the exhibition.
Catie Dull/NPR
Kivett said it was hard not to feel discouraged during the process.
But, he said, “This project is a testament to what can be accomplished if you don’t let discouragement stop your momentum.”
Kivett hopes as visitors come to view the exhibit that they leave with a deeper understanding of the direct impacts of mass incarceration to critique the idea of whether incarceration is the true path to justice and that they’re motivated to take concerns directly to their politicians to make change.
“I hope everyone realizes that they’re all stakeholders. And I want them to realize what their individual part is in this process. And I hope they leave our show charged to do their part,” Kivett said.
“Continuing to just cage people for harms committed in our country is not making us safer and not making us better as a nation,” he said.
He recommends rerouting money that is being put into prisons and jails into communities that need it the most rather than continuing to invest in the carceral system as it is now.
President Lincoln’s Cottage offers a poignant venue
A portrait of President Bill Clinton and a collage of drawings of President George W. Bush are on display at Lincoln’s Cottage.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
A portrait of President Bill Clinton and a collage of drawings of President George W. Bush are on display at Lincoln’s Cottage.
Catie Dull/NPR
Watercolor paintings, mixed media collages and colored pencil portraits are now hanging in Lincoln’s Cottage in what was the president’s former library, dining room and bedroom some 160 years ago.
Some of the pieces are of Lincoln himself.
A mixed media collage created by Robert Spence incorporates photos of Black Lives Matters protests surrounding a portrait of Lincoln. Spence writes of this piece, “There are so many hidden (and not so hidden) racial biases and struggles that still exist in America. I wonder what President Lincoln would say if he was alive today. ‘What happened to America?’ “
Other pieces target Lincoln’s more recent successors.
The works reflect on how each administration and the policies they signed into law have impacted prisoners and contributed to the current state of the U.S. criminal justice system, which has locked up almost 2 million people — a disproportionate number of whom are Black Americans.
A mixed media work featuring a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln is on display at the exhibition.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
A mixed media work featuring a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln is on display at the exhibition.
Catie Dull/NPR
Like former President Bill Clinton and his signing of the 1994 Crime Bill. Critics of this bill have said it is responsible for this mass incarceration of Black Americans.
Artist Mike Tran used this event to inspire his painting on Clinton.
Tran writes, “The 3 Strikes Law (the 1994 Crime Bill), designed as a crime deterrent, serves to prove how inadequate the ‘rehabilitation’ system is. Rehabilitation is not putting a person in a box for life. It is helping that person realize why they did what they did, who they harmed with their actions, and replacing those behaviors with prosocial thoughts and beliefs.”
Tran painted a skewed version of Clinton’s presidential portrait, writing:
“I wanted to weave these ideas into President Clinton’s portrait, as he was instrumental in the passing of this law. I wanted the symbolism in the piece to be subtle, hence the three small cigars on his collar and intentional blurring of the American Flag, but once you realize them, you can’t look away.”
Not all pieces put the presidents in a seemingly negative light.
In a portrait by Brian Hindson, he contemplates on his complex feelings about Trump, who signed the First Step Act into law in 2018. This law, among many other things, lowered prison sentences for certain nonviolent offenders.
Hindson, who at the time of finishing his painting spent 15 years in the federal prison system, writes after that law passed he saw that “people were leaving in droves” and that overcrowding in the federal prison system “was actually being addressed.”
That leaves Hindson with contradictory feelings about Trump. He painted Trump’s face split and divided into different pieces, each painted a different color.
“As controversial, polarizing, and divisive as Trump was and can be, he’s the only President that did something that benefitted every federal inmate. The style I picked was my fractured art. All the pieces make him up. All the bad stuff too. Much like all of us, it’s pieces of us. All the pieces make the whole,” Hindson wrote.
A six-panel installation by artists Yuri Kadamov, Aquilla Barnette and Lezmond Mitchell depicts President Barack Obama.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
A six-panel installation by artists Yuri Kadamov, Aquilla Barnette and Lezmond Mitchell depicts President Barack Obama.
Catie Dull/NPR
The exhibit’s largest piece is a 72-by-40-inch, six-panel installation that hangs in the center of the cottage’s sitting room wall.
It’s an eye-catching portrait with an even more striking story.
The subject of the piece is obvious: former President Obama. Except his face is distorted with puzzle pieces missing from his face.
It reflects the three artists’ broken hopes of Obama reforming the criminal justice system and granting clemency to men on death row — a dream of the three men who painted it, they wrote.
The artists, Yuri Kadamov, Aquilla Barnette, and Lezmond Mitchell, managed to work together on this piece without ever sharing the same space. The three men slid canvases under the steel doors of their cells and handed it off to a fellow inmate who would pass the work on to the next collaborator.
The piece, however, was never fully finished.
Mitchell, who was the only Native American on federal death row, was executed on Aug. 26, 2020, at the age of 38 for first-degree murder.
Callie Hawkins is the executive director at President Lincoln’s Cottage. Her team worked with Kivett on arranging and hanging the artwork in the president’s former library, dining room and bedroom.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
Callie Hawkins is the executive director at President Lincoln’s Cottage. Her team worked with Kivett on arranging and hanging the artwork in the president’s former library, dining room and bedroom.
Catie Dull/NPR
It’s significant given that this incomplete portrait sits in a building that represents what Hawkins calls “that unfinished work” of Lincoln’s legacy.
“[Lincoln] recognized in his own lifetime, that his role was just to push the boulder a little further up the hill, and there he was going to fall short, that others who came after him were going to fall short,” she said. “And then it was going to take everyone to continue this ideal, this promise.”
The site of the cottage is at the highest point of Washington, D.C. It was the seasonal home of the 16th president and his family. While at the cottage in 1862 (then called the Soldiers Home), Lincoln developed the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in an upstairs bedroom, Hawkins said.
This was “legally supposed to free slaves in America,” Ritter said.
“Mass incarceration in the U.S. has been referred to as the New Jim Crow. I think it’s such an interesting tension to have artwork created by folks who are still inside, who do slave labor, in the room where Lincoln quite literally wrote out his thoughts for freeing those people in America,” she said.
The Proclamation was enshrined in the 13th Amendment by 1865. It says that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
A portrait of President Abraham Lincoln sits on a mantel at Lincoln’s Cottage.
Catie Dull/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Catie Dull/NPR
A portrait of President Abraham Lincoln sits on a mantel at Lincoln’s Cottage.
Catie Dull/NPR
Kivett said this amendment provides this “loophole” for those convicted of a crime. He said involuntary servitude is still legal for convicted felons, who when incarcerated, are forced into work that pays little to nothing in prisons across the country.
Hawkins said it was important for the cottage to be a part of this exhibit as it offered an important point to hold important conversations around rectifying injustice — a goal of the museum.
“It’s really important to [Lincoln’s Cottage] to not put Lincoln on a pedestal. To take him down, to interrogate him, his policies, and to really be honest about where that leaves us today,” she said.
For Kivett, the project and its themes are the embodiment of years of focus and passion on social justice issues while in prison.
It’s part of what gives him purpose and goals for the future while inside, he said.
“The big picture of the project is to let people on the outside know that we are still people, and that we are still connected somehow in our humanity.”
Lifestyle
No matter what happens at the Oscars, Delroy Lindo embraces ‘the joy of this moment’
Delroy Lindo is nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in Sinners.
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
Over the course of his decades-long career on stage and in Hollywood, Sinners actor Delroy Lindo has experienced firsthand what he calls the “disappointments, the vicissitudes of the industry.”
On Feb. 22, at the BAFTA awards in London, Lindo and Sinners co-star Michael B. Jordan were the first presenters of the evening when a man with Tourette syndrome shouted a racial slur.
Initially, Lindo says, he questioned if he had heard correctly. Then, he says, he adjusted his glasses and read the teleprompter: “I processed in the way that I process, in a nanosecond. Mike did similarly, and we went on and did our jobs.”
Lindo describes the BAFTA incident as “something that started out negatively becoming a positive.” A week after the BAFTAs, he appeared with Sinners director Ryan Coogler at the NAACP awards.

“The fact that I could stand there in a room predominantly of our people … and feel safe, feel loved, feel supported,” he says. “I just wanted to officially, formally say thank you to our people and to all of the people who have supported us as a result of that event, that incident.”
Sinners is a haunting vampire thriller about twins (both played by Jordan) who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. The film has been nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including best actor for Jordan and best supporting actor for Lindo, who plays a blues musician named Delta Slim.

This is Lindo’s first Oscar nomination; five years ago, many felt his performance in the Spike Lee film Da 5 Bloods deserved recognition from the Academy. When that didn’t happen, Lindo admits he was disappointed, but he had no choice but to move on.
“I have never taken my marbles and gone home,” he says. “And I want to claim that I will not do that now. I will continue working.”
Interview highlights
On his preparation to play Delta Slim

Various people have mentioned … [that] my presence reminds them of an uncle or their grandfather, somebody that they knew from their families, and that is a huge compliment, but more importantly than being a compliment, it’s an affirmation for the work. My preparation for this started with Ryan sending me two books, Blues People, by Amiri Baraka — who was [known as] LeRoi Jones when he wrote the book — and Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer.
Lindo, shown above in his role as Delta Slim, says director Ryan Coogler “created a sacred space for all of us” on the Sinners set.
Warner Bros. Pictures
hide caption
toggle caption
Warner Bros. Pictures
In reading those books and then referencing those books, continuing to reference those throughout production, I was given an entrée into the worlds, the lifestyles of these musicians. There’s a certain kind of itinerant quality that they moved around a lot. The constant for them is their music, so that there is this deep-seated connection to the music.
On being Oscar-nominated for the first time — and thinking about other Black actors, including Halle Berry and Lou Gossett Jr., who had trouble getting work after their wins
I will not view it as a curse, because I am claiming the victory in this process, no matter what happens. … In terms of this moment, I absolutely am claiming, as much as I can, the joy of this moment. I’m not saying I don’t have trepidation, I do. It’s the reason I was not listening to the broadcast this year when the nominations were announced. I did not want to set myself up. But I’m … attempting as much as I can to fortify myself and know in my heart that I will continue working as an actor. I absolutely will.
On being “othered” as a child because of his race
Because my mom was studying to be a nurse they would not allow her to have an infant child with her on campus, so as a result of that, I was sent to live with a white family in a white working class area of London. … I was loved, I was cared for, but as a result of living with this family in this all-white neighborhood, I went to an all-white elementary or primary school. And I was literally the only Black child in an all-white school.
So one afternoon, after school had ended, I was playing with one of my playmates … And at a certain point in our game, a car pulls up, and this kid that I was playing with goes over to the car and has a very short conversation with whomever was in the car, which I now know was his parent, his father. He comes back and he … says, “I can’t play with you.” And that was the end of the game.
On the experience of writing his forthcoming memoir
It’s been healing, actually. I’m not denying that it has opened me up. I’ve been compelled to scrutinize myself. I’m using that word very advisedly, “scrutinized.” It’s a scrutiny, it’s an examination of oneself. But in my case, because a very, very, very significant part of what I’m writing has to do with re-examining my relationship with my mom. And so my mom is a protagonist in my memoir. I’m told by my editor and by my publisher that one of the attractions to what I’m writing is that it is not a classic “celebrity memoir.” I am examining history. I’m examining culture. I’m looking at certain passages of history through the lens of the “Windrush” experience [of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK after World War II].
On getting a masters degree to help him write his mother’s story
My mom deserved it. My mom is deserving. And not only is my mom deserving, by extension, all the people of the Windrush generation are deserving. Stories about Windrush are not part of the global cultural lexicon commensurate with its impact. The people of Windrush changed the definition of what it means to be British. There are all these Black and brown people, theretofore members of what used to be called the British Commonwealth. And they were invited by the British government to come to England, the United Kingdom, to help rebuild the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the destruction of World War II. My mom was part of that movement. They helped rebuild construction, construction industry, transportation industry, critically, the health industry, the NHS, the National Health Service. My mom is a nurse.
The reason that I went into NYU was because my original intention was to write a screenplay about my mom. I wanted to write a screenplay about my mom because I looked around and I thought: Where are the feature films that have as protagonist a Caribbean female, a Black female, where are they? … I wanted to address that, I wanted to correct that, what I see as being an imbalance.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Lifestyle
Britney Spears Open to Treatment Plan as Team Weighs Options
Britney Spears
Open to Treatment Plan After DUI Arrest, Source Says
Published
Britney Spears‘ team is hoping the judge mandates treatment for the pop star over jail time following her Wednesday DUI arrest … and Britney isn’t fighting them on that, TMZ has learned.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Britney is willing to comply with a treatment and support plan.
We’re told her team is in the early stages of developing a plan and they’re exploring multiple options, including mental health services, detox, and dual-diagnosis programs.
It’s unclear whether she would do inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it’s also unclear whether she would enter treatment before her May 4 court date.
Broadcastify.com
We broke the story … Britney was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers around 9:30 PM Wednesday in Westlake Village, CA, not far from her home. She was later taken to a hospital — not for any injuries, because we’re told she didn’t sustain any — but to draw her blood to determine her blood alcohol content.
According to CHP, she was arrested for “driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told us an unknown substance was found in Britney’s car, which was sent to be tested.
Britney’s manager, Cade Hudson, previously told TMZ … “This was an unfortunate and inexcusable incident. Britney will take the right steps, comply with the law, and we hope this marks the start of long-overdue change in her life. She needs help and support during this difficult time. Her boys will be spending time with her, and her loved ones are putting a plan in place to set her up for success and well-being.”
Lifestyle
If you loved ‘Sinners,’ here’s what to watch next
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
Warner Bros. Pictures
hide caption
toggle caption
Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint in Mississippi. Opening night does not go as planned when vampires appear outside. “In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons … they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks,” writes critic Aisha Harris. The film made history with a record 16 Academy Award nominations.


We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Sinners? Here’s what you told us:
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow; starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
If you want another cool vampire movie with Western kind of vibes, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark — super underseen and kind of hard to find, but really gritty and sexy and another very different take on what you might think is a genre that had been wrung dry. – Maggie Grossman, Chicago, Ill.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Directed by David Slade; starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
It follows a group of people in a small Alaskan town as they struggle to survive an invasion of vampires who have taken advantage of the month-long absence of the sun. Both this and Sinners revolve around a vampire takeover and the people’s fight to outlast the “night.” – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
The Wailing (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin; starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
In this South Korean supernatural horror film, a mysterious illness causes people in a quiet rural village to become violent and murderous. A local police officer investigates while trying to save his daughter, who begins showing the same disturbing symptoms. The film blends folk horror, religion, and psychological dread, exploring themes of faith, evil, and moral weakness. Like Sinners, it centers on a supernatural force corrupting a close-knit community, builds slow-burning tension, and examines spiritual conflict and human frailty. – Amy Merke, Bronx, N.Y.
Fréwaka (2024)
Directed by Aislinn Clarke; starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Clare Monnelly, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
In this Irish folk horror film, a home care worker, Shoo, is assigned to stay with an elderly woman who’s convinced she’s under siege by malevolent fairies. Like Sinners, Fréwaka blends folk traditions and social commentary with horror. The social failures Shoo copes with (untreated mental health issues, religious abuse) are just as frightening as the supernatural forces. – Kerrin Smith, Baltimore, Md.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by George C. Wolfe; starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman
This is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a legendary blues singer (Viola Davis) muscling through a recording session with white producers who want to control her music. Chadwick Boseman’s blistering in his final role. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
-
World1 week agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Wisconsin4 days agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Maryland5 days agoAM showers Sunday in Maryland
-
Massachusetts3 days agoMassachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
-
Florida5 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Denver, CO1 week ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Oregon7 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling