D.C.’s historic Unity Mural received a fond sendoff last week
By hola | Published | No Comments
Even as Washington’s Unity Mural faces demolition, it continues to unite communities like the local residents who gathered last week to bid farewell to the historic street art.
On Oct. 9, D.C. residents, including one of the Unity Mural’s lead artists, Ligia Medina (formerly Becker), converged on the Pepco substation in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood to celebrate it and the legacy of D.C.’s Latine murals.
Medina told a small crowd about the initial steps that resulted in the mural that has graced an outer wall at the substation for the past 43 years. She recalled hesitation from the D.C. student artists recruited through a summer jobs program, and how she and co-lead artist, the late Allen “Big Al” Carter, encouraged them by taking the students to art galleries across the city and reminding them that this mural was their job.
“Sure enough, they did it, and it was a great experience. I love remembering what they did and how they did it,” Medina says.
After gathering at the mural, the group walked a few blocks to The Festival Center on Columbia Road NW. Hola Cultura and the D.C. Preservation League hosted a panel to discuss and celebrate D.C. Latine murals, and specifically the impact of the Unity Mural.
At the event, Bruce-Monroe Elementary School at Park View teachers Lauren Nitkoski and Ambar Martínez presented a letter from their third-grade students with a plea to save the Unity Mural.
“This mural is important because people can walk around and look at it and think about how it represents unity,” the students’ letter states.
The teachers have developed a unit, “Mirando y Creando Murales a Través de Nuestras Identidades” [“Looking and Creating Murals Through Our Identities”], focusing on Latine murals and artists throughout the city. They say the Unity Mural often came up. The students hope their letter will make a difference, both say.
“The kids are really interested in what needs to be done to preserve murals and their stories in the city,” says Nitkoski.
The Unity Mural was recently honored along with 12 other endangered Latine landmarks around the U.S. and Puerto Rico by Latinos in Heritage Conservation (LHC), a nonprofit that works to support preservation efforts for U.S. Latine heritage sites. This recognition, according to the LHC website, aims to focus public attention and resources to protect the sites.
While Pepco is demolishing the original 1982 artwork this fall, efforts are underway to recreate it on another wall in the neighborhood or elsewhere in D.C. Over the past year, Hola Cultura has been working on a report to the D.C. Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs with a detailed roadmap for preserving the mural and its message. This fall’s national recognition builds more momentum behind those efforts. In the meantime, Zachary Burt, community outreach manager at the D.C. Preservation League, says plans are also in the works to digitally conserve the mural.
“Murals are artworks accessible to everyone,” says Hola Cultura President Alberto Roblest. “They belong to the passersby—the inhabitants of a place. Historic murals, like Unity, are snapshots of memorable moments in Latino history in the District. They are a legacy that we must preserve.”
— Story by Marlene Orantes
— Copy Edited by Samantha Gonzalez
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