About the Mural
Following the Ann Arbor District Library's Call for Artists in 2020, AADL installed its Black Lives Matter mural on the south side of Library Lane on Friday, May 21. The community-based project is the culmination of nearly a year of work between AADL staff, the local arts community, and a community review panel featuring Jamall Bufford, Marianetta Porter, and Rochelle Riley. Artistic Coordinator Avery Williamson helped lead the project and contributed art for one of the eight panels, which includes work from seven other artists showing what the phrase Black Lives Matter means to them: T'onna Clemons, Quadre Curry, Demario Dotson, John Rodriguez, Rachel Elise Thomas, Jaleesa Rosario Turner, and Curtis Wallace.
"We are so gratified by the response to the AADL Call for Artists that has led to the installment of this collaborative mural at the Downtown Library, and to the addition of works by local Black artists that have been added to the very popular AADL circulating art print collection," said Library Director Josie Parker. "We appreciate the opportunity to bring these artists and this work to the AADL community and look forward to continuing these initiatives and relationships."
Avery Williamson chose the letters used to spell Black Lives Matter specifically to speak to the breadth and diversity of the Black experience. The letters were drawn from images in the Ann Arbor District Library and African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County (AACHM) archives and identify moments and places significant to Washtenaw County Black history.
Panels & Artists
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Curtis WallaceYpsilanti, MI A Flint native, Wallace is the founder of The Be Creative Studio and has been studying and pursuing art professionally for more than 30 years. As a child, he would draw pictures and describe them to his blind grandfather, who told Wallace it helped him to not forget the beauty in the world. Read our Pulp interview with Curtis Wallace.
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Jaleesa Rosario TurnerPhiladelphia, PA A foreign-born Caribbean African-American who grew up in Iceland, Japan, California, and Ann Arbor, Rosario is influenced by old-school graffiti because it shows that art can be everywhere and sometimes you learn more from the walls and the streets than you can from books. Her earliest memory of art is listening to Latin jazz in her mother’s arms while watching the northern lights. Read our Pulp interview with Jaleesa Rosario Turner.
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Demario Dotson
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T'onna ClemonsAnn Arbor, MI This Ann Arbor native has studied fine arts at Eastern Michigan University, The Art Institute of San Francisco, and art history at Arizona State University, where she is working on her master’s degree in museum studies. Originally a graphic designer, Clemons uses those skills in her art, mixing media to create futuristic textures that focus on conveying and capturing the emotions of the African-American experience. Read our Pulp interview with T'onna Clemons.
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Avery Williamson
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Quadre CurryDetroit, MI A graduate of Albany State University and a freelance graphic designer and artist, Curry was born in Detroit but did most of his schooling in the metro Atlanta area. He grew up in his mother’s hair salon, drawing images he saw in the magazines there. Curry was moved by seeing Vermeer’s Girl With the Pearl Earring in person while in high school, but he seeks to juxtapose the traditional and the progressive in his art. Read our Pulp interview with Quadre Curry.
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Rachel Elise Thomas
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John Rodriguez
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About the Letters
The eclectic nature of the lettering speaks to the breadth and diversity of the Black experience. The lettering concept originates from the Ann Arbor District Library and the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County (AACHM) archives. I worked with AADL’s archives team to identify moments and places that were significant to Washtenaw County Black history. It was important to me for the letters to honor the spaces where history has been made, and to encourage the community to imagine and celebrate Black futures.
— Avery Williamson, Artistic Coordinator
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DeLong's Bar-B-Q Pit, February 1992 In 1964, Robert and Adeline Thompson remodeled an old gas station at 314 Detroit Street. DeLong’s Bar-B-Que Pit was a local staple for 38 years. Robert’s family moved to Ann Arbor from Jackson, Mississippi and their barbecue sauce remains a family secret. DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: “The business really started in our backyard in the house on Kingsley. Every holiday my father would cook ribs and my mother would make the sauce and all the other stuff, the sides, to go with it. And it smelled so good. The smell would drift, and people would come by and say, 'Hey, I can smell what you’re doing. You have anything? Can I have a bone or something?'... It was so popular he and my mom decided, why don’t they think about getting a restaurant." |
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Wolverine Barber Shop & Pool Room, May 1944 The Wolverine Barber Shop and Pool Room was a longtime fixture of the Black Business District at E. Ann Street and N. Fourth Avenue. Barber John Riggs operated the shop for twenty years until his retirement at age 80 in 1942. His partner Samuel Elliot continued to run the business until 1945. AUDREY LUCAS: “I knew Ann Street. And, of course, that's where people got their hair done on Fourth Avenue. The barbershops were up there. The beer garden was there. The pool hall was there. Where you could get your shoes shined was there. And so Ann Street was the Blacks' business district as far as I knew. That's what I grew up with.” https://aadl.org/aachm_loh_20160913-audrey_lucas |
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Accident Scene Of Parked Car Hit On N. Fourth Avenue, June 1947 Located in the Kayser Block at 211 N. Fourth Avenue from 1943 to 1960, Sadie’s Beauty Shop was in the heart of the Black Business District. Sadie Harmon's shop was a popular place for women to get their hair done. The Colored Welfare League owned the building and rented storefronts to Black business owners. SHIRLEY BECKLEY: “And on Fourth Ave there were several barber shops and beauty shops. Some of the ladies were in with the barbers. And some of them had their own beauty shops on Fourth Ave... I went to Sadie. Ms. Sadie. She did my hair. And Mrs. Dorothy Mack. She did my hair. And there was a Mrs. Patillo. She came a little later. And Mrs. Patillo, I believe, was in Mr. Marney's barber shop [at 209 N Fourth Ave] in the back.” https://aadl.org/aachm_loh_20150505-shirley_beckley |
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Jones Elementary School, Front Of School, July 1965 Built in 1923 at 401 N. Division Street, Jones School was a K-9 institution that served the majority of Ann Arbor’s Black residents. In 1964 the Ann Arbor Board of Education closed Jones School in response to public concerns over racial imbalance. Over 75% of students were Black due to Ann Arbor’s segregated housing market. AUDREY MONAGAN: “Well, when I went to Jones School it was from kindergarten through the ninth. The biggest thing that we all thought about was they bused the kids in from Whitmore Lake and Hamburg so it would be an integrated school. And then they built Pioneer School. So that was something that sticks with you…. Well, I don't think we really liked it. And we tried to give those kids a little hard time. But it didn't work. So we had to start making friends.” https://aadl.org/aadl_aachm-20190702-audrey_monagan |
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Time Running Out For Wonder Bar, August 30, 1982 The Wonder Bar, which closed in 1982, was the last bar in town with primarily Black clientele. The Derby Bar and Clint’s Club on E. Ann Street closed in the late 1970s. The Wonder Bar was in operation on Huron Street since the late 1930s, and then moved to 118 N. Fourth Avenue. LARRY HUNTER: “And I hung out on Ann Street for a reason—shooting pool, as I said before, allowed me to earn money for my first year and a half of college tuition because I was good, made money. And they had a handle on me. They called me ‘college boy’ because I was taking all the old men's money because I would beat them… But the times in the blind pig [at Clint’s Club] with these African American men—and some of them were a lot older than me—the things that I learned from them— They had their public persona when they were walking down the street on Ann Street. But when they were in the blind pig, they had a whole different persona. So I learned the good and the bad and the ugly from these old guys.” |
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Picketing outside Ypsilanti Urban Renewal Office, May 1961 When the Ypsilanti City Council applied for federal Urban Renewal funds in 1961, local Black residents protested. The plan called for relocating 200 families and razing dozens of houses and businesses in the Southside neighborhood. Many families could not find affordable housing in Ypsilanti until public housing units opened in the early 1970s. PREMAIL FREEMAN: “No one spoke up at the time until Ms. [Mattie] Dorsey came along and spoke up about urban renewal…. She was a Black activist in that neighborhood trying to tell people not to sell their homes because of urban renewal. And my thing was urban renewal was to keep all the blacks on one side. They tore down homes and built all them projects over there. I mean, not projects, but those townhouses right there off of Huron Street. Then the townhouses off of Second Avenue. To me, it was just to keep Black folks from crossing Michigan Ave.” https://aadl.org/aadl_aachm-20180611-premail_freeman |
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Dunbar Community Center A Place To Play and Learn, October 1951 The Dunbar Center was a major hub of social life and youth activities for Ann Arbor’s Black community from the 1920s through the 1950s. The Center at 420 N. Fourth Avenue had a lending library and community meeting spaces. Popular activities included art and cooking classes, musical ensembles, and summer camps. RUSSELL CALVERT: “We had a Boy Scout troop, we had a Cub Scout troop, we learned how to play pool, we learned how to play ping pong, we learned in reading groups... The Center was always a place you could go—and the little singing groups we were in, the little choruses or chorales, if you will, and the clubs. So the Center, as I grew up in Ann Arbor, that was really a bright spot. And most of the kids—not just myself, but most of the guys and girls that I grew up with that are still living and I'm still in contact with—remember the community center, Dunbar Center.” https://aadl.org/aachmvideos/russell_calvert |
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Pearlene Sullivan picketing City Hall, July 1963 During the summer of 1963, Ann Arbor activists demonstrated at City Hall for seven straight weeks in support of a Fair Housing Ordinance. Picketers like courthouse clerk Pearlene Sullivan opposed segregated housing practices. Most Black residents lived in present-day Kerrytown and Water Hill. WALTER BLACKWELL: “Pittsfield wouldn't show or allow people of color to live out there. So we had to start picketing there, at Pittsfield... And so CORE got a representative to train us to be non-violent. Non-violent means you're not supposed to fight. And even if you're on the line and they hit you, you're supposed to not fight. But anyway, you had to follow their philosophy in order to stay with the group. And at the time, we would be picketing for fair housing, housing. We picketed city hall.” https://aadl.org/aadl_aachm_20190315-walter_blackwell |
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Donald Hoff picketing City Hall, July 1963 After a summer of picketing by civil rights activists and allies, the Ann Arbor City Council passed a Fair Housing Ordinance. The ordinance took effect on January 1, 1964, but it did not end residential segregation. The NAACP and other local groups continued to push for stronger anti-discrimination measures. JAMES ANDERSON: “Right after Delores and I were married [in 1960], I recall—and I've told this story many, many times—there was a house that we saw that we thought we wanted to buy and were denied the opportunity to buy it. I could have fought it more and more, but I chose to just do an end run on it and found something else. And now I'm glad that was the case and that things worked out all right.” https://aadl.org/aachm_loh_20150507-james_anderson |
