Black History in Murals: A Journey Through Art and Time

The Legacy of Bishop Richard Allen and the A.M.E. Church 

Location: 3801 Market St, African Methodist Episcopal Church

The Legacy of Bishop Richard Allen by artist Willis “Nomo” Humphrey is located in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In partnership with the African Methodist Episcopal Church and First District Plaza, Mural Arts created the mural honoring the legacy of minister and activist Richard Allen. Members of the AME Church collaborated with muralist Willis “Nomo” Humphrey to design a mural that stimulates dialogue about Richard and Sarah Allen’s importance in American history.

Allen was born into slavery in Germantown in 1760, and was granted his freedom in 1780 after demonstrating religious devotion and academic aptitude. By 1787, Allen was a locally-lauded parishioner of the historic St. George’s church, drawing a large congregation of African-Americans to the church. An increasingly segregated seating policy for Black worshippers compelled Allen and his colleague Absalom Jones to lead their congregation in a historic walkout.

The walkout resulted in the formation of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas and Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The church is among the oldest denominations of independent African-American churches in the United States. Later he founded and was elected the first bishop at the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first fully independent Black denomination in the United States.

Read more about Richard Allen and this mural.

Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad 

Location: 2950 Germantown Ave

This mural is a tribute to the great works and sacrifices of abolitionists, freedmen, and freedwomen like Harriet Tubman and others who risked their lives so that enslaved Black people could live free. Located across from the Historic Fair Hill Burial Ground, the mural is inspired by the reformers who are buried there.

Historic Fair Hill is a 300-year-old Quaker burial ground where many who worked to end slavery and promote equality are buried. Established in 1703, this National Historic Site on the Underground Railroad Network was part of a tract of 16 acres given by William Penn to George Fox, founder of Quakerism, who left it to Quakers for a meeting house, a burying ground, and a school.

The burial ground was laid out in 1843 and enlarged in 1854, providing almost 5 acres of open green space in this urban neighborhood. Most of the persons buried at Fair Hill are Quakers, many of them participants in the early abolitionist and women’s rights movements. Some of the more renowned include Lucretia Mott, James Mott, Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock, Sarah Pugh, Ann Preston, and Edward Parrish. Some colleagues in the anti-slavery movement, not Friends, are also buried there, most notably Robert Purvis, an African-American known as the President of the Underground Railroad, and his family.

Read more about this Mural.

The Colored Conventions: A Buried History 

Location: 351 Washington Ave

The Colored Conventions: A Buried History is a series of two murals by Ernel Martinez, situated at 315 and 351 Washington Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Created in 2022, The Colored Conventions Project partnered with Mural Arts Philadelphia to memorialize the Colored Conventions Movement and its attendees.

Starting in 1830 and continuing until well after the Civil War, free, freed, and self-emancipated Blacks gathered in state and national political conventions. A cornerstone of Black organizing in the 19th century, these “Colored Conventions” brought Black men and women together in a decades-long civil and human rights campaign. The first “Colored Convention” was in Philadelphia.

Both murals visually demonstrate the continuous struggle for freedom and rights African Americans in Philadelphia have articulated, demanded, and secured. These Black men and women, their movements, and communities continue to carry on the work of the conventions over generations and into the future.

Learn more about the Colored Conventions and these murals.

Remembering A Forgotten Hero 

Location: Universal Institute Charter School, 1427 Catherine St

In 2018, artists Willis “Nomo” Humphrey and Keir Johnston collaborated on this mural at the Universal Charter School in South Philadelphia. The artwork celebrates early civil rights activist Octavius V. Catto in the neighborhood where he lived.

An educator, athlete, and activist, Catto was a staunch advocate for abolition and Black suffrage. Throughout his life, Catto fought for the inclusion of Black men in the fight for emancipation, the desegregation of Philadelphia streetcars, and the eventual ratification of the 15th Amendment, which prohibited discrimination against citizens in registration and voting based on race, color, or prior condition. Catto was assassinated by dissenters at Ninth and South Streets on Election Day in 1871 on his way to cast his vote. Remembering a Forgotten Hero is the first mural to honor Catto.

During the mural production, Humphrey and Johnston engaged with local students and members of the Restorative Justice Guild in learning about Catto’s life and struggles, designing a mural that elevates and reflects on the complexity of our history.

Learn more about this mural.

The Tuskegee Airmen: They Met the Challenge 

Location: 20 S 39th St., Philadelphia

They Met the Challenge pays homage to the Tuskegee Airmen and their message of perseverance to rise above adversity, racism, and unfair training and performance expectations in the US Armed Forces. To create the mural, artist Marcus Akinlana worked closely with the Philadelphia Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen. The mural’s design incorporates their images as young men–uniformed pilots, at work, and in-flight–along with representative images of the myriad challenges they faced at home and abroad due to Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the military.

The Airmen’s descriptions of their boyhood dreams of learning how to fly inspired the design. The bas-relief sculptures that adorn the mural were created by students in the Mural Arts Mural Academy who participated in a series of workshops with Akinlana.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first corps of African-American military aviators in the US Armed Forces, formed in 1941 under the command of Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Davis was a West Point graduate and son of the first African-American General in the US Army, who trained nearly 1,000 men over a four period. Many of those men were from Philadelphia.

Learn more about this mural.

Staircases and Mountaintops: Ascending Beyond the Dream 

Location: Martin Luther King, Jr. Recreation Center, 2101 Cecil B. Moore Ave

In the spring of 2014, in collaboration with PhillyRising Collaborative and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Recreation Center in North Philadelphia, Mural Arts gathered a team to create Staircases and Mountaintops: Ascending Beyond the Dream. This continuation and expansion of the work Mural Arts’ Restorative Justice Guild Program was already doing at the facility was based on a photograph by William Lovelace that depicts Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, as they led a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965.

The facility is a cornerstone of this community, encompassing an entire city block and boasting a full-size gym, classrooms for after-school and full-day programs, a large playground, and sports fields. New murals and mosaics help draw attention to the services this city resource provides.

Lead artists Willis “Nomo” Humphrey and Jonny Buss, along with Guild participants, met with the local community on several occasions to gauge the type of mural they wanted in their neighborhood. After numerous collaborative discussions, Humphrey created a design for the front of the building and the side facing the playground, inspired by the civil rights movement and Dr. King’s pivotal role in the fight for equality. Abstract mountains and stairs symbolize activists’ arduous journey to attain their full rights. At the front of the facility, the team installed a brand new, intricate mosaic by Buss that enlivens the space and serves as a symbol of welcome.

Learn more about this mural.

Dr. J (Julius Erving) 

Location: 1234 Ridge Ave., Philadelphia

Feeling restless and desperate to improve the quality and variety of the murals, Mural Arts Executive Director Jane Golden raised money in 1990 from a private foundation to bring her old friend and mentor, Kent Twitchell, to Philadelphia. She wanted a “breakthrough mural,” and Twitchell—a nationally acclaimed California artist—was just the man to paint it. “We knew we had to push the boundaries,” she said. “The goal was to try to integrate superior artwork with a subject that touched the community in a special way.”

Twitchell was known for his portraits, and he lobbied to paint basketball great Julius Erving in a business suit instead of a uniform to portray him more as a man and role model than simply another well-known athlete.

Known for his remarkable slam dunks, Erving won three championships, four Most Valuable Player awards, and three scoring titles with the ABA’s Virginia Squires and New York Nets (now the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets) and the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. In the last 30 years, he has been repeatedly honored by Sports Illustrated and the NBA as one of the greatest players of all time.

Read more about the making of this mural.

Tribute to Herman Wrice (Re-envisioned) 

Location: 612 N 33rd St

Herman Wrice (1939-2000) was a renowned community organizer and inventor of the Wrice Process – a method of direct action whereby neighbors directly confront street-level drug dealers in their communities. In 1988, Wrice organized Mantua Against Drugs (MAD), fearlessly confronting dealers, condemning potential crack houses, and leading marches against drug dealers in his neighborhood. With the slogan “Up With Hope. Down With Dope,” the Wrice Process empowered Mantua residents to reclaim their neighborhood at the height of the crack epidemic.

Following Herman Wrice’s death in 2000, David McShane created a mural tribute to Wrice. After being obscured by new construction, the mural was lovingly recreated at 33rd and Haverford Streets.

Read more about this mural.

ASpire: No Limits  

Location: 2054 Ellsworth St., Philadelphia

Mural Arts and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, of the Grammy© Award-winning band The Roots, worked together to create ASpire: No Limits, a mural celebrating the life of Shawn L. “Air Smooth” White, Ph.D. Dr. White was a community leader, father, and educator who created educational health initiatives on HIV/AIDS as well as sexually transmitted diseases aimed at young African American men in Philadelphia before he passed away suddenly from hypertension in April 2013.

A series of workshops, programs, and community paint days accompanied the creation of the mural. Workshop topics included personal responsibility (Awareness of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as conflict resolution and anti-violence), wellness (holistic health promotion), and refuge (affirming oneself, defining personal goals, and thoughtful decision-making).

Dr. White was born and raised in South Philadelphia and stayed true to his neighborhood roots, becoming a fixture in the Point Breeze section of the area. In 2004, Dr. White earned a Master of Human Services (MHS) from Lincoln University. In 2011, his Ph.D. from Cappella University, where his studies focused on analyzing and evaluating HIV and sexually transmitted diseases risk among young African American men. Concurrent with his studies, he worked in social service with the Youth Outreach Community Awareness Program (YOACAP) as a cast member, peer educator, and youth trainer for HIV/AIDS awareness. His sixteen-year affiliation with the organization kept him face-to-face with at-risk communities who were fighting the battle against HIV and AIDS.

Learn more about Dr. White and this mural. 

The History of Black Philadelphians is Still Being Written 

While it is evident that Mural Arts strives to celebrate and bring awareness to the tireless work of Black historical and community figures of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, it acknowledges that there is still work to be done to create a safe and equitable city for all.

With this challenge in mind, Mural Arts continues to support the work of artists seeking to address topics that affect Black communities, such as the disproportionate incarceration of Black people, police brutality, and restoring hope in the future.

Among other issuesnational and global scale, the racial discrimination and abuse that Black people still endure at the hands of the authorities reached a climax in 2020. This environment of social conflict, resentment, and injustice produced some of the city’s most compelling murals addressing contemporary issues.

Gerald Brown, Roberto Lugo, and Isaac Scott’s Stay Golden harnessed the radical energy in the city and around the country by commemorating the powerful spirit of Black and Brown people, while Russell Craig’s temporary installation Crown, served as a response to the ongoing protests supporting Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the fight to end systemic racism and inequality. Meanwhile, Craig’s Prophesied intended to call attention to the oppression and brutality from law enforcement and the mass incarceration Black people face in the United States.

More recently, muralist Keisha Whatley unveiled Philly’s First Juneteenth Mural to commemorate June 19, 1865, when individuals in Galveston, Texas, were finally able to embrace their freedom – more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In this mural, Whatley sought to celebrate the extensive history of Black individuals, from their ancestral beginnings to the triumphant moment of emancipation.

As we celebrate Black history this February, we can’t forget that this country was built on the suffering and labor of Black people, effectively weaving Black history seamlessly into the fabric of American history. With respect and appreciation for those who came before us, we must continue to fight for equity and find strength and inspiration in those who refused to remain silent