“A Mountain of Sorrow, A Journey Towards Change”

A commemorative mural painting in downtown Grand Rapids, MI part of the #WindowsGR project organized by local artists of color
in response to nationwide unrest surrounding Black liberation and Police brutality
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This mural was created in response to the overwhelming deaths of Black people (men, women, children, and transgendered) murdered by police. These unjust acts build up, pour out, and fill the depicted landscape with grief. Grief is as human an emotion as joy, yet when we are grieving we have a societal standard to brush painful experiences under a rug; to not want to observe it, to not sit with it. Much like our countries ties with systemic oppression and racism, they do not want us to acknowledge it. We have a responsibility to stay present with these painful truths, and to continue to push for true equality and justice; To push for change and reform of the systems and institutions that allow for disproportionate amounts of people of color to die at the hands of the state.

The figurative mountain represents a collective of humanity grieving, crying out. The figure climbing the face of this mountain represents all those who seek to confront and to change. May we take the time to acknowledge where we have come from, and where we are at now so that we may envision, create, support a new path forward.

I stand in solidarity with marginalized and oppressed groups and people of color in support of land reclamation, reparations, and abolishing systems of racism and oppression.

No one is free, until we all are free.