Monday Murals: Black Lives Taken Too Soon

It's time once again to join Sami at Sami's Colourful World and her Monday Murals.  Even though it's still Sunday in my world, please be aware that Sami's mural link goes live at 11:01 a.m. my time today.

My foodie friend Sally told me about this mural.  She immediately thought of me and told me where to find it.  As soon as I saw it, I was nearly overwhelmed.  It is quite appropriate because on Friday (August 27), we celebrated the 57th Annual March on Washington.  Although the National Park Service, which granted a permit for up to 50,000 participants, did not “require nor enforce” the use of social distancing and masks, Al Sharpton, who organized the event said they required all attendees to wear masks and social distance wherever possible.  Each person received a temperature check and was given a small bottle of hand sanitizer, too.  Many of the families depicted in this mural spoke during the March on Washington on Friday, too.

Breonna Taylor was a beautiful 26-year-old African-American emergency medical technician

who was fatally shot by Louisville police

issuing a no-knock warrant.  

The dove of peace flew to the next person who died too soon.

Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17 year old was walking home from a convenience store when he was spotted by a neighborhood-watch volunteer

who followed him and shot him because Martin "appeared" to be on drugs or might have been a burglar.   Once Martin died, the murderer was released because it's legal in Florida to use deadly force in self-defense.

Later charged with the offense, the offender was sadly acquitted and is now free, while Trayvon Martin is still dead!

Emmett Till was only 14 years old when he was brutally beaten, had one eye gouged out, and lynched for supposedly speaking to a white woman in a grocery store in Mississippi while visiting his uncle, a sharecropper.   After the lynching, the kidnappers threw his body in the river, where he was later found.  The all white male jury acquitted the two suspects in the case.

Till's casket was returned to his Chicago birthplace, where his mother insisted on an open casket funeral so everyone could see what had been done to him.  Till's death and the subsequent photos that were shown in various magazines may have, some believe, sparked the Civil Rights Movement.  It was 65 years ago on Friday (August 28) that Till was murdered.

This mural has been at this site for nearly two years, from what I could learn.  It was painted long before George Floyd was murdered, which inspired the Black Lives Matter Movement, and before last Sunday (August 23) when Jacob Blake was shot seven times, three of which hit his back, by a police officer who was not wearing a body cam.  Blake is currently paralyzed and up until Friday was cuffed/shackled to a hospital bed because he was accused of a felony.  Now those charges appear to have been dropped.  This incident occurred in front of Blake's three sons, one of whom was celebrating his birthday, who witnessed the event from the back seat of their SUV.

This mural is found in a strip mall located at 13th and Hillside in Wichita, Kansas (USA).

If you enjoy murals from around the world, please don't forget to visit Monday Murals at Sami's Colourful World.  And PLEASE, if you plan to protest anywhere in the world, do so PEACEFULLY!!  The mothers of all these who have died are asking for that, too.