A Statement on the Downtown Murals
project Context — DURING JUNE AND JULY, 2020, 44 BLACK ARTISTS MADE 42 MURALS IN DOWNTOWN DURHAM.
These murals were created in the context of the uprising in the Black Lives Matter movement in response to Black people being murdered in the streets at the hands of the police as well as in response to the ubiquitous ways that Black lives are not prioritized and Black voices are silenced in this country. The artists were all paid for their work.
June 6, 2020
BLACK DURHAM,
When you go downtown you will see paint and art and messages on some of the boarded up buildings. Much of it was created by Black artists in Durham and some of it was not.
While the paint you see on the boards was coordinated quickly, it was not done lightly.
Because we know that in the midst of protests against police murdering Black people, the Blackest thing to do is to paint out the feelings
knowing it will be removed soon and the residue of the “cool” it created will only increase property value for the mainly white people who own buildings, but you decide to do it anyway.
We know that they will see it and think it’s “so cool” and take photos for their IG and not tag us. We know that they will take selfies in front of our work and tag #blacklivesmatter and #bullcity and walk back to their downtown apartment without even recognizing
that if Black lives really did matter than Black Wall Street would be more than a marker and 147 would have gone around Hayti and not through it.
And we know that Downtown Durham Inc is telling businesses to take the boards down because it makes Durham look bad and they are trying to sell our city to the highest corporate bidder— and asking for more police presence downtown to achieve their goal.
We know all this and yet we continue to create.
So when you see the work by the Black artists downtown, know that they made a choice. We made a choice. And we chose our creativity over their commitment to misunderstanding us. Our voice over their slack-jawed silence. Our freedom over their systemic failure.
And when we say Black Lives Matter we are saying that
Black Housing Matters,
Black Farmers Matter,
Black Land Matters,
Black Children Matter,
Black Trans Folx Matter,
Black Families Matter
and Black Art Matters.
And everybody else, Pay Black Artists.
In Solidarity,