Well-known activists and political figures included Martin Luther King Jr., Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, Stephen Biko, and Harriet Tubman.
In an interview with the New York Times dated September 7, 1997, Alewitz said of the mural "I wanted to do this one because Pathfinder represents the tradition of publishing important revolutionary ideas.
I find that much of the art taught in the schools and produced through the gallery system reflects the values of the cynical and confused middle class.
From the right, Patrick Buchanan attacked it in the Washington Times as "a six-story shrine to communism, a Marxist Mount Rushmore in Greenwich Village."
A quotation from Eugene Debs' famous anti-war speech made in Canton, Ohio were replaced with words from Fidel Castro.