This exhibition explores and illuminates the problem with "Social Justice in America" from the view point of the visual artist, Leon Nicholas Kalas, an outsider, an American by choice but not by birth. The question of social justice has always been an intriguing issue to Mr. Kalas that he was unable to comprehend from the very beginning, when he came to America from Europe in 1960.

In that decade, America experienced a terrible turmoil with its social justice. He had expected to arrive in a country that claimed to be the "Land of the Free". Yet, there was discrimination towards the black race, a people with the right to be in this country, since they were brought here in chains as slaves, over anyone else that came after them by their own free will. Still, these people were treated as second class citizens simply because of skin color. Mr. Kalas found the national anthem statement; "land of the free", to be a very ironic and hypocritical statement. Black people were brought to America against their free will, to be sold as slaves. While at the same time, the American anthem heralded a "land of the free."

This social injustice has persisted and prevailed through American history, not only towards the black race, but throughout the masses: the poor, the homeless, the jobless, the handicapped, the old, the gay, and anyone else in America that does not fit a standard. With the presented works of this exhibition, Mr. Kalas suggests that Americans should take an evaluative look at their social justice.

— Ronald G. Browning
Chairman of Historic Preservation
Commission of Harve de Grace, MD