Equipped with paint supplies, chalk, and people power, local volunteers came out as early as 6:30 a.m. Sunday, June 21 to begin painting a Black Lives Matter mural in front of Elbert Lee Foster Park on Broadway near Fourth Street in Three Rivers.
Community Organizer Letia Wardell calls the project “a sign of progress” for Three Rivers.
“I grew up here and I know when I was younger I would have never imagined this being able to happen,” Wardell said. “I have a son and I have friends that aren’t going to always be in Three Rivers, so if Three Rivers can get on board and stand together and support (each other) then it can be a change in the world. And when my child leaves Three Rivers or my brothers or my cousins I know they will be safe.”
Wardell said from inception to execution the project took approximately two weeks.
“We had to come out a few times, do the measurements with muralist Trenton Frays,” Wardell said. “He did everything with the measurements and everything. He came out and I met with him and I told him what we were trying to do, to do a mural to represent the solidarity of Three Rivers and Black Lives Matter. So he came out, he did measurements, he did pretty much everything. Told us what supplies we needed and we just took it from there. We had to change a few things a few times because our spacing got limited so it took a while to get here but we got here.”
The mural “is just the beginning” for the Three Rivers community, according to Wardell, as it strives for “more equality and less segregation.”
“Because yes, Three Rivers is one community, but there’s also a community within the community, and we want to get away from that. Instead of having two separate communities within one, have one community. We can all understand each other, we all can relate to each other, we can all socialize with each other, without it being a lot, because there are a lot of language barriers, cultural barriers. We want to break those.”
LETIA WARDELL
Frays said a budget of $250 was originally allocated for the mural but he estimates the group only used $180 of those funds for supplies. The mural was also completed faster than he originally anticipated, thanks in no small part to the efforts of project volunteers.
“I estimated that this would take us about four hours if everything went perfectly, and we’re about two-and-a-half hours in and we’re almost done,” Frays said on Sunday. “So the level of success that we’ve had is pretty darn good. I’m super happy with all the support and people that came down to help, it is amazing.”
The Black Lives Matter mural marks the second major art project Frays has led in Three Rivers, the first coming in the form of artwork displayed under Pealer Street Bridge.
“This is the first place that I’ve been other than Pealer Street Bridge to do a project on this scale, so far basically everything has been about the math as far as this is concerned, as far as spacing out, making sure that all the line work is correct,” Frays said.
“And just making sure that everything looks legitimate, the whole goal here was to make it look like the city came down and did this professionally. So in hopes that they will allow us to do more once they see how well we were able to do this. Because I think they lacked a little bit of confidence in us with limiting us to one lane because we were hoping that we could actually do all three — so it’s really been — it’s really worked out really well.”
Frays was inspired by the passion of the small coalition that spearheaded the project, and emphasized that the mural communicates “a message that needs to be shared.”
“Seeing how passionate they were about getting this done and the message and what it involves and the way the country is right now I jumped on board instantaneously,” Frays said, “it’s such an important thing and its important period in our time, we need to be able to band together and be able to do things like this and bring awareness.
Poet, Activist and Watershed Voice Columnist Aundrea Sayrie said Sunday’s success was the result of “a fantastic community effort.”
“Seeing a vision materialize is always something special,” Sayrie said. “Letia presented a beautiful three phase idea, beginning with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ sentiment, and eventually ending with ‘Standing in Solidarity.’ Seeing the completion of phase one of the mural is especially satisfying knowing just how many moving parts it took to get it all done. From the birth of the idea, to working with key decision makers within the city, artists, donors, to volunteers. It was a fantastic community effort.”
Sayrie gave special thanks to donors and key decision makers like Pastor Lolita Foster of Ambassador’s for Christ Church, Pastor Barbara Brown of Grant Chapel A.M.E. Church, Pastor Tony Bennett of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, Dad’s Place, Les Williams, the Spicer family, and City Manager Joe Bippus for their contributions.
While phase one of the project was “executed beautifully,” according to Sayrie, there’s still much work to do. The second and third phases cannot be completed without expressed permission from the city, permission the group has not yet received.
“The beginning of the mural is a reflection of what can happen when we come together. Although today’s mural was executed beautifully, it is only a small part of the project, and the full mural is more inclusive. Our hope is to be able to complete phase two and three in the near future. However it is not up to us, so we’ll keep the community posted.”
Alek Haak-Frost is executive editor of Watershed Voice.
Photo gallery created and curated by Kandi Harper
