The only white person to have a solo exhibition at Acts of Art, Tecla Selnik had strong ties to a number of Harlem-based leftist and Black nationalist organizations and causes. With actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Ed Taylor of the Harlem Cultural Council, and the historian John Henrik Clarke, she lobbied for the pardon and release of James Lightbourne, a young Black artist who began making soap and newspaper papier-mâché sculptures while imprisoned for burglary, a conviction that was reversed after he had served two and a half years. He was re-arrested and indicted for murder in December 1968, and was held “awaiting trial” in the Tombs for more than twenty-seven months, insisting on his innocence and refusing a plea deal. His work was shown at the Countee Cullen Library in Harlem in February 1971, while he was still behind bars. Lightbourne was acquitted in April 1971, in the wake of the publicity his cause generated, but he died under suspicious circumstances some four months after his release. Tecla’s exhibition was dedicated to him. An artist and illustrator for a number of leftist and feminist newspapers and magazines, Tecla had exhibited with Benny Andrews and Alice Neel at the Countee Cullen Library in 1966, and would exhibit with Anton Refregier and Charles White in East Berlin in 1974. ❉