Africa Center Debuts Black Lives Matter Mural On Juneteenth

HARLEM, NY — Community leaders, elected officials and artists gathered at Harlem's Africa Center on Friday to unveil a 45-foot-tall Black Lives Matter mural on the museum's facade and celebrate Juneteenth.

Many of the names adorning the windows of the Africa Center's Fifth Avenue and 110th Street building have rung out in New York City's streets for the past three weeks: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Layleen Polanco. Others, such as Adama Traoré and Marielle Franco, represent the global scale of racist violence committed against Black people and people of color.

"These names and so many others are in a long line and long history of Black people and people of African descent in America and around the world who were killed at the hands of those meant to protect them or whose lives weren't valued enough by their killers to receive justice," Africa Center CEO Dr. Uzodinma Iweala said Friday.

The Africa center chose Juneteenth — the annual celebration of the liberation of the United States' last enslaved people in Texas — to unveil the mural to "loudly proclaim that Black lives have always mattered, and will always matter," Iweala said. The holiday has always been important in the lives of African-Americans, but its importance is now entering the country's "mass public consciousness" in the wake of weeks of nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd.

Iweala hopes that the Black Lives Matter mural will create a daily "call to action" for New Yorkers, city government and the city's major cultural institutions — many located just down Fifth Avenue's "Museum Mile" — to tackle the uncomfortable work and conversations that yield real systemic change in undoing the damage of structural racism. That work starts with cultural institutions recognizing the roles they have played in the past to contribute to a racist system.

Joyous Piece of the Harlem Arts Alliance echoed the call for accountability from other institutions on Museum Mile and to emphasize the important role of Black art and artists in society.

"Yes we use our voices to tear down the structures that seek to constrict us and to inspire that light in others, but we live and continue to live and breathe for ourselves. Yes we create works that translate the nature of our human experiences, but we also create works to expand our realities. Black artists, curators, arts educators, administrators, artist-activists — you are necessary, you are not an afterthought," Pierce said during Friday's mural unveiling.

The Africa Center collaborated with Brooklyn design studio Full Point Graphics to design, create and install the mural in just three weeks, Iweala said. The museum had planned to utilize its exterior to display a message of resilience for the community since shutting down in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"I hope that people take a moment to just stop and contemplate what it means," Iweala said. "All too often people say slogans or just move past spaces not taking a moment to sit and reflect and think about 'what does the statement Black Lives Matter mean? What does it mean to see the names of all of these people who have had their lives taken from them in a very violent fashion? What does that mean for the history of the United States and for our future?'"

The Africa Center's Fifth Avenue location will remain closed until city and state regulations shutting down cultural institutions are lifted. The museum has shifted its focus to digital programming in recent months, hosting discussions with artists, scholars and educators and facilitating virtual workshops on topics such as animation.