From blight to beauty

Ava Perego

History. Culture. Art. Old South Baton Rouge’s foundation originated and thrived on

these three things throughout the 1960s and ‘70s until desegregation broke up parts of the

neighborhood. Founders of the Museum of Public Art and The Walls Project decided in 2012

that it was time to capitalize on the rich potential that OSBR’s original foundation left. They did

this through street art.

Dr. Kevin Harris, a local dentist, founded the Museum of Public Art, an open-air building

decorated with murals, in 2012. His inspiration came from graffiti writer James Conti, also

known as VE, from New York City. The OSBR community is in a continuous battle with land

abandonment and blighted properties. People, like Civic Association President Christine

Sparrow, desired change.

“It may look like something is blighted from the outside, but you don’t know what it

looks like on the inside,” Sparrow said.

This “inside” that Sparrow talks about is the historical and cultural presence the OSBR

community fights to preserve. Harris thought that public art would show outsiders the beauty

and substance that this community offers.

“What many people see as graffiti can be used by communities for cultural awareness

and economic development,” Harris said during a Ted x LSU Talk this past March.

This cultural awareness lies within the history of the community, which Harris

commissioned artists from across the world to paint. Graffiti artists James Top, Part-One and
King Bee painted the first mural in 2012, and it can still be seen today. It shows a variety of

Baton Rouge culture so that it can resonate with anyone who sees it.

“The reason for the murals was to give us a little faith in what looks so blighted,”

Sparrow said.

The 40 murals that went up in OSBR from 2012 to 2014 through the Museum of Public

Art provided that faith by portraying pivotal historical events like artist Wayne Johnson’s mural

“Bus Boycott” located on Thomas Delpit Drive. On St. Joseph and Terrace streets, the struggle

of African-Americans is painted on three different houses telling the story of their journey.

The murals remind the community of the struggles African-Americans overcame, and

the legacy they left. The paintings give residents faith that one day OSBR will thrive how it once

did, and encourages them to continue the legacy set by their predecessors.

“It picks the curiosity of young people who are in their teens or early twenties that

haven’t had a connection. They say, ‘Who is that? Why are they important?’” Ed Pratt, a

columnist for The Advocate and OSBR native, said. “They can ask their parents, ‘Who are these

people that are on these walls?’”

Harris says that using art in OSBR drives out darkness. He witnessed this first hand when

the Museum of Public Art painted the back of the historic Lincoln Theatre on Myrtle Walk

Street.

“Before the mural went up, people were tagging the walls and using it as a memorial for

slain drug dealers, and it had a negative vibe to it. When the mural went up, there was no more

tagging, and people looked at it with a sense of respect,” Harris said during his Ted x LSU Talk.
 Despite the positive aesthetic energy the Museum of Public Art brought to OSBR, some

people do not have the same appreciation that Harris and Sparrow have for the artwork.

“You have some people that don’t like that stuff period. They don’t like anything that is

painted on the walls. They think it’s a distraction,” Pratt said. “They don’t want artwork to be on

one side of the wall, and the other side of the wall to be collapsing.”

One historical mural at South Boulevard and Eddie Robinson Drive that showed the

1972 riot that took place in South Baton Rouge, was painted over because some members of

the community thought the mural was too negative.

“This is history. History is not sweet. How did Jesus die? Did he die sweet? No. He died

violently,” Sparrow said.

The Museum of Public Art stopped commissioning artists in 2014 due to a lack of

outside funding. Sparrow and Harris remain hopeful that the project will start back up again in

the future.

“As Jesse Jackson said, ‘keep hope alive,’” Harris said. “[The murals] illustrate that with

effort by the community and artists, a transformation can take place.”

Even though the Museum of Public Art stopped funding murals, The Walls Project has

continued to recruit artists to decorate walls within South Baton Rouge and OSBR. This

nonprofit also focuses on diminishing blight, preserving history and connecting different

communities.

“Merging artists from different cities and giving them a canvas, a public canvas, to speak

on is very important,” Kristen Downing, a painter for The Walls Project, said.
 Though the two institutions are separate entities, both keep education and preservation

at the heart of their messages. Over 700 members from the Baton Rouge community have

worked on more than 90 murals with The Walls Project. The Walls Project also invites artists

from other communities to bring change to OSBR and South Baton Rouge using their talent.

Downing painted a second bus boycott mural during Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend

in 2018. She taught students about painting murals, the history behind the boycott and then

painted the historical scene with them on Scenic Highway by 19 th street.

“I like to see other things and be inspired by what is going on in other cities,” Downing,

who is originally from New Orleans, said. “It [the art] tells a lot of stories.”

These stories in OSBR are the history of the community. Moments like Martin Luther

King Jr.’s visit to OSBR to discuss the bus boycott with Reverend TJ Jemison have been

immortalized through murals on houses.

Harris said that these artists consider themselves writers first, and that is what they

came here to do. They wrote a fleeting history through paint, reminding a community everyday

of their rich and powerful background.