Local Artist and Students to Design Inspirational Message on Woodward Avenue
Students from the Detroit Public Schools Community District and Detroit Heals Detroit will be participating in a new art project to paint a “message of resilience and power on Woodward Avenue downtown,” according to the City of Detroit.
“It’s important to have the youth voice on this project, especially when we’re fighting for black lives,” Sirrita Darby of Detroit Heals Detroit said in a statement. “We’re fighting for the next generation. Our ancestors died for us to live.”
The mural, which will be headed up by a yet-to-be-announced Detroit artist along with the students, will cover the west lanes of Woodward Avenue from Larned to Congress.
The street will be closed from Tuesday, June 16 at 6 p.m. until Friday, June 19 at 8 a.m. to accommodate the painting. The full project is expected to be wrapped up in 24 hours Tuesday and Wednesday, giving time for it to dry before Detroit’s Juneteenth Freedom Rally on Friday, June 19.
“In June 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the ‘Walk to Freedom’ march down Woodward Avenue,” City Council President Brenda Jones said in a statement. “Fifty-seven years later, that history will merge on Woodward Avenue with the message of power, resilience and hope painted by the young people as they demonstrate that Black Lives Matter and Black Voices Matter.”
“Detroit is a Black city, and we’re excited to see a message of Black people’s strength and resilience, a message that is finally being heard around the world,” added Charity Dean, City of Detroit’s Director of Civil Rights, Inclusion & Opportunity.
Detroit Heals Detroit is a social justice organization that fosters healing justice for Detroit youth who have suffered trauma and focuses on dismantling systems that cause children pain.