Nearly three years in the making, Missouri’s largest black history mural was revealed Friday, October 21 at the Better Family Life (BFL) community center in North St. Louis. The mural spans over 95 feet of wall in the entrance to the BFL Cultural, Education and Business Center, depicting thousands of years of history.
“That mural, for us, represents inspirations,” Deborah Ahmed, BFL executive director, told attendees at the mural’s unveiling event. “It represents an accurate telling of our history. It represents our history being told from our perspective. It represents a vision for the future. It represents a vision of Page Boulevard.”
The center is located at 5415 Page Blvd., a mile north of the notorious Delmar Divide that splits black North St. Louis and white South St. Louis. BFL has been working on a master plan to beautify Page, including the commissioning of portraits of local African Americans by Chris Green to cover the windows of abandoned buildings.
Bolivian artist, Gonz Jove – who was recruited by Miranda Jones, BFL vice president of youth services – completed the mural with the help of his son, Alex Jove. While painting the detailed mural, Jove and BFL partnered with the Saint Louis Art Museum (with the leadership of Renee Franklin, director of community partnerships for the museum) to create a 12-week mural technique curriculum that was used to teach students throughout the metro area.
Jove said his knowledge of African-American history was “very superficial” prior to working on the mural. “That’s the reason why it was so difficult,” he said. Jove has completed dozens of mural projects; some are famously featured on the sides of large buildings in his home country.
The mural begins with a boy’s face emerging out of the universe. Glimpses of the motherland follow. Then onward to pivotal moments in history, featuring several leaders vital to the advancement of black people, including Nat Turner, Stokely Carmichael and President Barack Obama. The burnt out QuikTrip on West Florissant Avenue – Ground Zero in the Ferguson unrest – has its space.
The mural ends with another peek into the universe – a nod to Jove’s personal belief that the universe exists in all of us and that everyone is connected through it.
“I sometimes present our universal connections with visions of stars and galaxies,” Jove told The American. “I created a lunar reality by distorting space, which allows for you to get lost in the artwork. I believe that art can break the chains that constrain our minds.”
Emily Rauh Pulitzer, chair of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, was cited as a critical funder for the mural project.
BFL will use the mural as a teaching agent for youth by developing a curriculum based on the artwork that can be used for students. Jackie Lewis-Harris, director of Connecting Human Origin and Cultural Diversity at University of Missouri-St. Louis, will develop the program.
“It’s a lot of material, and we’re trying to condense it down to one-hour talks,” Lewis-Harris told The American. “We don’t want it to be overwhelming.”
Harris said she’s learning new things as she makes the curriculum. “It’s going to be a great gain to the region and probably to the United States,” she said. “I can’t think of any one place that has all that material on one wall.”
The artist who made the mural is definitely feeling it.
“Now that it’s complete,” Jove said, “the mural can serve its function as an agent for change and as a tool of empowerment.”
