Alfred Conteh USA, b. 1975

Stanton Road Water Boys depicts a group of young Black men Conteh met while they were standing on a roadway soliciting people to buy bottled water. Atlanta police routinely run kids like this off because they don’t have a business license. They keep coming back because they have few other opportunities to make a living. “If there were opportunities for them to work, I doubt they would stand here trying to sell a two dollar bottle of warm water,” Conteh says. As with all of Conteh’s portraits, politics are embedded in the story of the people in this painting. In more affluent, white neighborhoods of Atlanta, police are not tasked with busting up lemonade stands or other commercial endeavors run by children. Police do, however, target young people of color who are engaged in similar activities downtown and in predominantly Black neighborhoods, labeling them a “public nuisance.” This situation persists despite Black mayors being in power in Atlanta since 1974.