More than 80 years ago, a left-wing critic of American history took the federal government’s cash to paint a sweeping mural inside George Washington High School, in the heart of San Francisco’s Richmond district.
At the center of the mural was George Washington himself, not as glorified father of the country, but as complicit in the country’s foundation upon the enslavement and genocide of black and brown people.
Two parts of the mural — African American slaves working on Washington’s Mount Vernon property and white men stepping over the body of a Native American — sparked protests nearly 50 years ago. Now, the entire 1936 mural is a step closer to being removed altogether after a 13-person committee recommended by a 10 to 1 vote with two abstentions to whitewash it (literally). Convened by the school district, the Reflection and Action Working Group held four public meetings; its recommendation, and the fate of the mural, are now in the hands of the school district’s Board of Education and superintendent Vincent Matthews.
A public hearing and vote by the board has not yet been scheduled, according to SFUSD spokeswoman Laura Dudnick, but sources say it could come later this month. It’s unclear if a majority vote by the board would be enough to win the day, even if the superintendent disagrees.
“If they vote to remove the mural, we’ll mount a legal challenge,” says Lope Yap Jr., vice president of George Washington’s alumni association. Yap Jr., a filmmaker who graduated from Wash (as it’s known) in 1970, was the only member of the Reflection group to vote to keep the mural. The group included the Washington principal, an English teacher, two students, members of the Indian Education and African American Parent Advisory Committees, a member of the Alliance of Black School Educators, and others.
Yap Jr. said he has suggested other measures to counter the images, to no avail. “I can see adding curriculum, adding plaques, I can see covering them — and if we’re going to do that, why not paint positive images on the fabric or curtain? Then when you open it up, you would see the dark part of history.”
Moving the Arnautoff panels would be expensive and risky. They are frescoes, painted straight onto wet plaster, according to Barbara Bernstein, founder of a registry for New Deal-era art.
The mural’s creator, Victor Arnautoff, came to America from Russia in the 1920s to study art and eventually became a citizen.
Arnautoff was taking the government’s money, but he was woke for his time. Washington’s ownership of slaves — -in other words, his economic dependence upon the enslavement of others — was not a comfortable or common topic at the time. Nor is it now.
“A lot of the leaders of the new United States were seriously flawed by their commitment to slavery,” says Robert Cherny, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State University, who wrote a biography of Arnautoff. “You have to look at both contributions and flaws or you don’t get the complete picture. History is complicated.”
Arnautoff was intent on detailing working people and people of color in his art, adds Cherny, who spoke at a Reflection and Action meeting in favor of keeping the mural.
In another panel, Washington is pointing white trappers forward into the American frontier as they step over the lifeless body of a Native American. Among the vivid colors of the landscape, the trappers are grayed out, like ghosts, apparently a comment at the state of their souls. Nearby, a white man and Native sit sharing a pipe; a broken tree branch overhead is a subtle symbol of broken treaties.
This isn’t the first New Deal-era mural in S.F. to draw fire. Arnautoff, who spent time in Mexico to apprentice with master muralist Diego Rivera, was technical director of the Coit Tower murals. The tower’s 1934 grand opening was delayed because of outcry over two communist symbols incorporated into the sprawling depiction of California life. A hammer and sickle along with a “Western Worker” banner were eventually painted over, and the tower opened in October 1934. (Other subtleties survived, like the two left-wing workers’ newspapers in the kiosk at the center of Arnautoff’s San Francisco street scene.)
Painting over just the two offensive panels at Wash isn’t an option, the Reflection and Action group says. It has recommended whitewashing everything after creating a digital archive. This would be the second piece of public art to get the heave-ho recently because of cultural insensitivity. Last year, a 19th century statue titled “Early Days,” with a Spanish friar and Mexican vaquero looming triumphantly over a fallen Native American, was removed from Civic Center—an echo of the removal of Confederate statues across the American South in the wake of the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA.
The Reflection and Action group submitted to the school district its recommendations and a handwritten explanation. Here is a transcript, according to a source who photographed the explanation:
“We come to these recommendations due to the continued historical and current trauma of Native Americans and African Americans with these depictions in the mural that glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy, oppression, etc. This mural doesn’t represent SFUSD values of social justice, diversity, united, student-centered. It’s not student-centered if it’s focused on the legacy of artists, rather than the experience of the students. If we consider the SFUSD equity definition, the “low” mural glorifies oppression instead of eliminating it. It also perpetuates bias through stereotypes rather than ending bias. It has nothing to do with equity or inclusion at all. The impact of this mural is greater than its intent ever was. It’s not a counter-narrative if [the mural] traumatizes students and community members.”
In other words, the group isn’t impressed with arguments about historical complexity or Arnautoff’s intentions. They want the mural gone yesterday.
Others wanted the mural gone nearly 50 years ago. When Lope Yap Jr. was still at Wash, protests over the mural erupted. The city struck a compromise: African American artist and San Francisco native Dewey Crumpler would paint more murals inside the school — responses, in effect. His murals, titled “Multi-Ethnic Heritage: Black, Asian, Native/Latin American,” are now more than 40 years old.
Crumpler’s work is not the focus of the group’s ire. (Although both Yap Jr. and Cherny reported hearing derogatory references during the public meetings to Crumpler’s “compromise” murals.) Attempts to reach Crumpler were not successful. [Update: Crumpler later contacted The Frisc. You can read our exclusive interview with him here.]
The recent push for removal started after San Francisco Heritage proposed in 2017 designating the art-deco Washington High as a city landmark. Board of Education members objected, noting that landmark status could complicate future efforts to remove the murals.
Two of the most vocal board members, Matt Haney and Shamann Walton, were elected to the Board of Supervisors last November. In 2016, Haney pushed to change the name of the school because Washington was a slave owner. Walton told the Examiner last year that a reading of the mural like Cherny’s — that Arnautoff was trying to speak truth to power — doesn’t make up for the mural being offensive to Native Americans.
If the Reflection and Action group’s recommendations carry the day, the Washington mural will be erased this summer and instead of traumatic images, students starting the school year this fall will see a lot of blank white space.
Alex Lash is editor in chief of The Frisc.