When the San Francisco school board voted in June to paint over a controversial Washington High School mural, it left open a loophole to change its mind.
Tuesday night, the seven members convened again for the first meeting since that vote, and at the behest of board president Stevon Cook, they voted 4 to 3 to exploit that loophole. Instead of destroying the mural — which depicts slavery on George Washington’s plantation, a dead Native American, and the white man’s broken treaties — the school board will find a way to hide it from students’ view. Whether that happens with curtains, solid panels, or by some other means, perhaps even removing the images to another site, is still up in the air.
Cook announced last week the resolution to reconsider the June vote. But it was by no means clear if the board would vote for it and shelve the whitewashing plan. Opponents of the mural, including students of color who have no choice but to walk past it every day, have rallied around the slogan “Paint it down.” They have not been moved by arguments that the mural, created in the 1930s by Russian emigre Victor Arnautoff, was a sharp critique, even radical for its time, that Washington’s (and America’s) prosperity stemmed from the bondage and bloodshed of other humans.
The 83-year-old mural should be a teaching tool, proponents say. Detractors counter that kids of color don’t need it to know about the enslavement and genocide of their ancestors. “Why do we need a mural to show us who George Washington was?” said one mother of an incoming Washington High ninth grader. “We have Google for that.”
Three board members were not moved either, voting against Cook’s resolution and for destruction, even though mural preservationists vowed to mount legal challenges. (They still might do so; covering or altering historic public art in California requires a long regulatory process.)
In giving the board a chance to review the mural’s destruction, Cook, who is African American, said he had tempered his earlier views. The images were hurtful and showed America’s racist history, he said, and he did not advocate keeping them on display. But listening to mural advocates in recent weeks had swayed him against destruction.
One of those advocates was Reverend Amos Brown, the president of the SF chapter of the NAACP, who came out in favor of the murals last week. Also reiterating his support was Dewey Crumpler, the San Francisco art professor who painted “response murals” at the school 50 years ago when black students protested the Arnautoff murals. Crumpler first voiced his support for the murals this spring in a wide-ranging interview with The Frisc.
Rev. Brown spoke last night, acknowledging America’s racist and genocidal history but calling the mural a way to tell the truth about Washington’s complicity: “Leave that mural alone,” he said, drawing cheers (but also rankling other speakers by taking more than his share of allotted time).
Commenters on both sides of the issue leaned toward incendiary language at times. One woman, who said she was of the Seneca Nation, lamented that people of color were being “used and weaponized” against each other, and reminded the African Americans in the room that Native Americans helped free their ancestors from slavery.
More than one mural supporter bashed their opposites as uneducated and ignorant, or accused adults of not letting kids think for themselves, even though several students came to the meeting to speak their own minds. Board member Rachel Norton applauded Thomas Reddy, a teacher at the school, for asking his students to write to the board about the mural; the letters expressed a range of opinions, she said. (Norton voted in favor of Cook’s resolution; Reddy spoke last night in favor of painting over the mural.)
Even while voting to paint over the mural in June, the board inserted a big caveat: If there were signs of delay, such as legal challenges, they could opt to cover the mural, perhaps with paneling, but not destroy it. Board member Mark Sanchez, who at the June meeting voted in favor of destruction, calling it “reparations,” acknowledged soon after to The Frisc that the “chances of painting over prior to paneling are probably long.”
An attempt last night by board member Alison Collins to keep the option of destroying the mural failed to gain enough votes. Soon after, the board voted to pass Cook’s resolution. Board member Faauuga Moliga, who spoke of his Samoan heritage and solidarity with students of color, was a key vote. He voted to paint over the mural in June. This time, he said, he was “heartbroken” but would vote with Cook.
Now that whitewashing the mural is off the table, the board will have to move fast with another solution to prevent any more students from seeing the mural. School starts next Monday.
Cook admitted his proposal wouldn’t please many people but he wanted some kind of resolution. He said he expected to feel the heat come election time: If you want to vote someone off the board for this, he declared, “direct it toward me and let this board get back to work.”
Cook, other board members, and advocates on both sides rued the national attention and the distraction the issue has brought upon San Francisco. After the vote, Amy Anderson, an organizer of the antimural movement, gave a short statement to the media. “I’m not going away, but I may take a little break to take care of myself emotionally,” she said, referencing online threats she has received. “The mural someday will be painted down.” She declined to take questions and walked away.
Alex Lash is editor in chief of The Frisc.
