Together We Rise

 This essay was first published in 2019 in “The Milwaukee Anthology,” a nonfiction and poetry collection new from Belt Publishing. The anthology is available in fine bookstores throughout southeastern Wisconsin as well as at www.beltpublishing.com. 

“Together We Rise”: on Painting the Community Mural, “Sherman Park Rising”

by Tia Richardson

“It felt heavy, and while we were helping it didn't feel as big. It's deeper than what I thought it was.” Gabri-El Taylor Bey, Sherman Park Resident, mural participant

This is what I heard after I sat down with residents to watch a short film documenting their experience working with me on a community mural called 'Sherman Park Rising'. After working on the film with co-producer Andy Gralton and putting the pieces together, watching it with them revealed a larger story behind the individual ones they each brought to the mural.

“I didn't realize I was a part of something bigger.” Charmane Perry, Safe and Sound

Little did I know when the project started in June 2017 that it would have such an impact. When I was called in by former Safe and Sound community organizer, Amanda Schick, it was still one month before the police shooting of Sylville Smith that would come to a tragic end, sparking violent unrest and capturing media attention in Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood.

Amanda and other organizers had been working with residents for 18 months to identify top issues, like beautification, speeding cars, and gun violence. A strong network of community groups with deep roots wanted a mural for so long, to beautify the blighted corner of 47th and Center street. They also wanted community engagement, so their passion birthed a perfect opportunity for my passion. The outcome far exceeded our expectations.

After the community was shaken in August 2016 by the unrest and left to grapple with the aftermath of violence and negative stigma, I had to rethink my approach. Given the hot climate confronting issues of police accountability, coupled with feelings of hopelessness and depression affecting this neighborhood and others due to structural inequity, compounded by a traumatic event - this couldn't be just another mural with some decorative images. I knew there were opposing feelings and points of view about what happened, even among people working on the same sides. How could I get people to work together if they felt differently about the same painful issues?

The feelings were still raw 9 months later when funding was approved by the City of Milwaukee and I was given the green light to start gathering input from the community.

On an otherwise ordinary day in a church basement for our first public workshop a surprising dilemma confronted me. I knew there would be a range of emotions about different problems, from hot anger to cool optimism. How to avoid a downward spiral of frustration if we didn't agree? Would the mural focus on the problems, or would it focus on the positives?

Up to that point I was afraid people would show little interest in painting a mural, let alone about anything positive after what they had been through. But the workshop revealed a lot! Young and old, black and white, community organizers and business owners shared a wide range of concerns they had and what they wanted. They shared the joy and the pain with mutual respect. Later I realized an uncomfortable truth: that I had underestimated the community's willingness to acknowledge painful issues in a positive way!

“It was just so powerful with the climate as it is... and it just shows that one by one we can make a difference, and through something like art, through involvement in a community art project.. art can be therapeutic without being art therapy.” Devvie Washington Walton, Sherman Park Resident, mural participant

Guided by my background using arts as a way to relieve emotional stress from trauma, I approached this project from the perspective of a healing process. From this angle the first step is offering everyone a chance to name the problem they care about. Once we can acknowledge an issue we can choose a way to move forward. Here it meant thinking of a tangible, practical thing they are doing or wish they could do in their neighborhood to improve the situation. Then, together, we get to imagine where our combined actions lead us in a vision of the future.

“It provokes a hope of change... but when you look at the bigger picture its something positive to reflect on... The painting and the video is one positive thing that's different from the narrative.” Vaun Mayes, Sherman Park Resident, mural participant

The mural shows the little-known resident-driven assets - urban gardens, grassroots youth programs, non-profit and individual support for housing and literacy, and working with police to improve accountability and community relations.

The narrative surrounding Sherman Park persisted as a negative one, but many residents wanted a way to tell others outside of that area what they weren't seeing, through the mural. It also ended up helping them tell themselves.

Negative stressors can create a negative self-image. How we feel about ourselves influences how we treat others and our motivation to move forward. Unfortunately the bombardment of negative stressors in our environment today far outweigh the positive reinforcements it takes to turn the effects of internalized trauma around. That's why it was so important for the mural to have a positive focus.

I believe this is why the project had such a positive outcome. They were able to shape a narrative for themselves that acknowledges their suffering, shows a way forward together, and imagines a hopeful future.

Asking 'what does hope look like?' is a powerful way to start feeling more hopeful. We have to imagine tangible pictures in our vision of the future, or else its just another hard-to-grasp idea that flies away in a cloud of dust as soon as negative reality sets in.

But if we can do the work residents during this process did, of shaping and visualizing together, and making it into something real, even something as simple as painting a mural is a positive move forward.

The beautiful thing about sharing what matters to us in a room full of strangers is that it opens up space in us to be a little more vulnerable. In that vulnerability lies the chance to reshape the narratives we hold close. Being vulnerable opens our hearts and minds to new ideas, new feelings, new perspectives – a new vision!

“I never thought of art as being hope, and I think of hope as an action word by getting everyone involved.” Kenneth Ginlack Sr., Sherman Park Resident, Clinical Therapist

One of the most powerful moments during the project was when people got involved to help paint the mural.
On scheduled days the mural was open to the public to pick up a brush and 'paint by numbers'. By the third week more than 150 people painted the first layer of color over the entire wall. There were toddlers, teenagers, families, elected officials (Mayor Tom Barrett and Alderman Russell Stamper lent their hands), law enforcement, and the business improvement district. The community groups who were so instrumental in seeding the idea of a mural in this location showed their support. The joy in the air was contagious! So many volunteers, food, and love poured out, it fulfilled its own vision of a community coming together.

“Peace is a process of each person doing what they can do.” Doris Wallace, Sherman Park Resident, mural participant

When the mural was complete something surprising happened that called me to do one more thing. At the mural ribbon-cutting, Mayor Tom Barrett spoke at the request of the City, and others who had been involved from the very beginning spoke, including myself. What surprised me was that Milwaukee's former Police Chief Edward Flynn also came to speak, and when he did, he seemed moved by it. But at the time I didn't understand why.

Despite myself, I reached out for a sit-down interview to see what was motivating him. This was stretching way beyond my comfort zone. That interview proved to be pivotal for me as a person of color sitting across from a white male police chief. Where the interview led revealed as much about my own personal bias as much as a bigger theme of how to find common ground that opens up a chance to learn about each other's humanity.

Reflecting on this moment in the film, one resident responds: “I mean if we can create peace in really small ways because we see somebody like Police Chief Ed Flynn in a different light because he's touched by the art in the same way I'm touched by the art.. that, that moment is a really big one for moving our whole city to a different place of respect and understanding between people who come from different places.” Shelly Roder, Sherman Park Resident

Panning across the 17'x56 mural we see images of struggle, of grief and of hope. We see a woman struggling to lift a house off an elderly man being helped by a young boy. We see babies and toddlers playing in flowers, youth working to free a lending library from hungry vines. We see trust, respect, and working together. We see young people desperately calling out to adults for help, a memorial tree with balloons and a silhouette of one life too many lost. We see the call and the response of the community, different demographics, bringing peace lilies to support the rebirthing of the neighborhood. Homeowners, renters, young and old, black and white, jewish, clergy, professional and non-professional.

In the middle, a policewoman, a resident and a builder struggle to lift a household full of people on their shoulders. Their dance is a symbol of the balance of power between authority, residents, and the creative energy it takes to move everyone forward, with hope.

In all of the symbolic messages everyone can find something they can relate to in their own way. We can't go back and change the past, but we can honor it for what it can teach us about our humanity. Using this moment we get to choose where we want to go next – together! Could this mural project be a model for making the world a better place? I believe so!