BLM Street Mural
Mar 1, and one of the two head artists along with a group of volunteers to paint a Black Lives Matter street mural across a 500 square foot stretch of Washington Street in Nubian Square on July 5, 2020 in Boston MA.
On June 4, Mayor Marty Walsh pledged to make Boston one of the nation's leaders in combating racism. When Kai Grant, the owner and chief curator of Black Market Nubian, read about the mayor's pledge, she, like many other Black Bostonians, felt skeptical. "Boston has a long racist history," Grant says. "Redlining, the building of highways through our communities... there are a lot of things Boston needs to address in order to truly address its racism."
With her husband Chris, Grant runs Black Market, a 1700 square foot gallery-style space in Nubian Square. It began as a pop-up market in 2017 but has bloomed into an important and central artery for arts and culture in Roxbury and surrounding areas. "I woke up on June 15 and thought, 'We need to make a statement. Boston needs to make a statement'," Grant says. "And we wanted to challenge Mayor Marty Walsh to help us make that statement."
Black Lives Matter murals popped up on the roadways of major cities across the country following global protests against police brutality. Grant felt that Boston needed one of its own. "I understood that it needed to be a collaborative effort with local artists that were from not just Roxbury, but Nubian Square," Grant points out. "Investing directly back into our artists in the area was a main priority."
Roxbury-based artists Lee Beard and Mar 1 came on board to lead the execution of the mural, while Chris Grant acted as the lead art engineer. Artist Chanel Thervil also answered the call to lend a helping hand to the mission. "It was great to be on the on the scene to learn," Thervil says. "I'm not a large scale muralist so I was learning from these artists. There were a number of volunteers who showed up who are actually house painters."
The community collaborative effort required lots of planning and strategy. "We had to work with the MBTA and the state," Grant says. "We obviously had to get in contact with and work with the city of Boston." Grant also coordinated to hire local photographers, videographers and youth to document the mural-making process.
By Sunday, Black Lives Matter and a pan-African flag completed a 500-foot course down Washington Street. While community reaction to the mural has been positive, there has been some criticism. Beyazmin Jimenez, a Dorchester resident, is grateful the mural is now in Nubian Square. But she's seen negativity on social media about the usefulness of street art. "Public spaces are important and what we do with them is important," Jimenez says. "It's a powerful reclamation of public space and it's necessary to dismantle white supremacy."
