“Art is revolutionary. Being able to think of something and create it, whether it’s for yourself or it’s out in the world, there’s a freedom in it — a liberation.” – Kristian Blackmon
At this year’s Paint Louis, a hip hop happening by the river in downtown St. Louis, August 29 to August 31, legendary St. Louis Civil Rights Activist Percy Green was commemorated with a mural produced by Kristian Blackmon, Marquis Terrel and Lindy Drew. Green, one of the original founders of the Organization for Black Struggle, famously scaled the Arch to bring attention to the lack of African Americans on the job site when it was being built. When he came down he was arrested and lost his job as a research and development technician at McDonnel Douglas. He told The St. Louis American in 2018, that at the time of the action, ”I was working on the Mercury program … Not in my wildest dream did I ever think I would lose my job as long as I went to work every day on time and performed.”
Green losing his job resulted in the landmark United States Supreme Court case of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green regarding the nature of proof in a racial discrimination case and the order in which plaintiffs and defendants present proof. Green ultimately won the case which established a new legal framework, the “McDonnell Douglas standard,” which is still used today to determine if an employer has discriminated in employment decisions.
“Before the Green vs. McDonnell case, the only way that you could prove racial discrimination is if the white person that committed the act admitted that they discriminated; otherwise, you couldn’t prove racial discrimination,” Green said.
In an Instagram post, Blackmon explained what moved them and collaborators to produce the mural of Percy Green , “Our people need some inspiration. What better inspiration than this man, who at 90 is still driving himself around, movin’ better than me! It doesn’t look the same for everyone, but we’re all responsible to respond to what’s happening in the world, then and now.”