Murals Capture the Summer’s Historic Social Justice Movement

The summer’s rallying cry for social justice decorates a street in downtown Kansas City, demonstrating its influence by the number of volunteers who turned out this Labor Day weekend to help paint the ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural and five others around the area.

“I’m one of a group of American Institute of Architects, there are quite a few of us working on it today,” said Albert Ray as he instructed family and friends measuring for the stencils they were using. “I’ve got my friends and family out here today. It gives us an opportunity to something fun, do something together, and you know, just have an impact in the community.”

Not far from the art work, Sandy Giles sat at a voter registration table. Giles works with the NAACP.

“I think it’s very important,” Giles said. “It’s just a symbolism to say that, ‘Our lives are important and matter.’ And, it takes away from no one else because it’s just in this day and time when it seems like we are ones that are being killed, just with reason, by police. I think it’s important to realize that we are human, too, and our lives matter to us.”

Hours passed and groups of novice artists of all races and ages dipped into buckets of paint and left their mark on a moment many are calling an inflection point in American point.

In Louisville, protesters and right-wing militia members faced off after the Kentucky Derby which had been rescheduled from May because of the pandemic. Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris criticized President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr for their denial of “systemic racism” in America.

But, recent polling suggests Americans are tiring of the sustained protests and are becoming more divided by party, according to a CNN Poll which is a departure from polls taken shortly after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer.

Murals have become the summer’s way of recording the times. In Washington, D.C., the first large-scale “Black Lives Matter” mural dominated a street close to the White House. Artists and volunteers painted a mural over the Fourth of July weekend honoring Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency technician shot and killed by Louisville police when they entered her apartment as part of an investigation and her boyfriend opened fire thinking the police were intruders. And, in other cities like Decatur, volunteers have been invited to support social justice and police reform by showing their artsy side.

“We’re all the same people, we all should have the rights, the same benefits. If I can fight for that and do my part, no doubt. It’s a win-win,” said Kelly Cobb, a young white man painstakingly painting one of the last letters of the Kansas City downtown mural.