‘A painful totem:’ Artists paint message on Raleigh street to protest Confederate statues
Raleigh residents painted “End Racism Now” in giant yellow letters on a downtown Raleigh street Sunday morning to send a message about nearby Confederate monuments and support those who are fighting to end racism, they said.
The street art, which is 20 feet across in some places, was painted on Martin Street by the Contemporary Art Museum in the Warehouse District. It comes after days of protests in Raleigh and across the nation following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The message follows a similar action by the mayor of Washington, D.C., who had “Black Lives Matter” painted in yellow letters on the street outside the White House.
The Raleigh effort was lead by Charman Driver, a former CAM chair who sits on the board, with help from her husband, Frank Thompson, as well as Asher Gannon and the owners of Raleigh Denim, Victor Lytvinenko and Sarah Yarborough.
Driver initially asked Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin Saturday if she and others could paint the message “End Racism Now” on the 100 block of Hillsborough Street so it would lead up to the Confederate monuments on the state Capitol grounds.
“A very painful totem,” Driver said.
Baldwin told her the state owns the street, she said. “I said, ‘Let’s call the governor.’”
Baldwin called the city manager, Driver said, and he indicated they could paint the message by the CAM on Martin Street.
A handful of volunteers met a city engineer, who brought a couple of barricades, Sunday morning and started painting around 8 a.m.
“We did it. And it’s wonderful. And we feel really good about it. Our voices are being heard, but it’s not enough,” Driver said. “We want to paint that block, but what we want ultimately is for those statues to be removed.”
The actions would be free and it would be a significant gesture to the black community, she said.
“Take them down,” she said. “I don’t need my 12-year-old going over there and seeing that.”
Driver said the effort won’t stop with street art.
“This is peaceful, but I tell you one thing — if they don’t remove those things it is not going to be so peaceful,” she said.
Lytvinenko said the artists discussed 100 ideas over the last week and moved forward with the street painting after getting permission from Baldwin late Saturday night.
The street art is symbolic, he said. It isn’t changing the systematic issues, but it is making a plea to show that they care and are going to be proactive in bringing change that may take a while to be realized.
“We wanted something immediate that said that we believe in this,” Lytvinenko said.
This story was originally published June 7, 2020 at 2:29 PM with the headline "‘A painful totem:’ Artists paint message on Raleigh street to protest Confederate statues."
