Civil Rights Journey: Milwaukee and Beyond mural series

This mural is was commissioned by the Elaine Schreiber Daycare at Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. It was inspired by historic and recent events in Milwaukee, WI.  It was painted with kids enrolled at the daycare ages 4 to 12 during a three week residency.

I was challenged with finding a way for the little ones to contribute, so we used balled up plastic bags to dab paint on the background for a textured effect. The older kids were able to paint in the bigger areas, and I touched up the edges to make it more cohesive.

JOSHUA GLOVER

Joshua was an enslaved person from Missouri who escaped to Racine, WI in the 1850's. He made it to Milwaukee, WI where he was jailed at Cathedral Square Park downtown under the Fugitive Slave Act. Thousands of white people helped break him out of jail and escape to freedom in Canada, where he lived in freedom as part of an integrated community. The jail no longer exists.

OPEN HOUSING and EDUCATION RIGHTS 
For 200 nights in 1967 hundreds of NAACP youth marched from Milwaukee's northside across the 16th street bridge (known as the Father Groppi Bridge) for fair and equal housing. Milwaukee's southside neighborhoods were at the time predominantly Polish and Italian immigrants.

Father Groppi was a historic civil rights leader pictured far right and the advisor of the youth. More recently, youth marched across the bridge to demonstrate in support of public education, represented holding a sign at the bottom.

FREE HUGS
Lastly, this painting shows a white police officer hugging a young African-American boy. It is inspired by a photo that went viral taken in 2015 in Portland, Oregon during a march in support of the Ferguson protestors.

When people are suffering and all hope seems lost, it's helpful to find images or examples of how it can be better. Seeing those can be uplifting. This is a vision I had been struggling to conjure even as an artist: an antithesis to police brutality. I was concerned I wouldn't be able to use the image because of copyright, so I found the photographer Johnny Nguyen on Twitter (@chambersvisuals) and to my joy was granted permission as long as he got to see the finished work! (He loved it.)