Sometime in 2005, during my first year as the Director of the then Prince Theater Foundation (Now Garfield Center for the Arts), I’d invited a friend to volunteer to help me with preparing the theater for an evening event. Her job was to place a program for the event on every seat. When she finished the main level, she handed the rest to me and said, “I’m not going up there.”
For two-thirds of its 90 years, the New Lyceum / Prince Theater was segregated. There was a “Blacks Only” entrance, ticket box, staircase, and what’s more is that even the balcony was separated by a wall – Whites up front in chairs, Blacks behind, on benches. When we were doing research for the student-created “A Chestertown Attic” in Playmakers summer camp 2006, a life-long White resident of Kent County with 300+ years of lineage here shared this with us about sitting in the balcony in the 1950’s – “We knew better… we climbed over that stupid wall and we sat with our friends.” There is a history here, we must acknowledge it. We can do that with Public Art.

At the West Entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the elongated figures of Jacob Epstein’s Social Consciousness (1954) suggest sympathy, tenderness and sorrow for human suffering. The three parts of Social Consciousness are (left to right) The Great Consoler (or Compassion), The Eternal Mother (or Destiny) and Succor (or Death). At the base of the statue the last two lines of Walt Whitman’s poem, America, is engraved: Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old, Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
Public Art should exist to speak, unconstrained about problems, celebrations, injustices, memories, and so much more. It should exist to erase barriers to art, it should exist “among” the people. It must exists to stir emotion, to honor good work, and to challenge our understanding of, and sometimes the insufficiency of what we were taught. Sometimes its sole purpose is to make us see uncomfortable truths. Public art should not infringe on someone else’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; it should especially asserts those rights for people who have historically and societally been hindered from achieving them.
The phrase “Black Lives Matter” is a statement of truth. It is not political. It does not challenge my life and its purpose. It does not take away from my humanity but it does assert the humanity of those whom this country once called three-fifths of a human being.
If painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of Historic Chestertown makes one Black person feel safe and valued in their own hometown, then it is worth it. If painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of this 18th Century Port town, known for its slave trade” creates a conversation that leads to the opening of one Black-owned business, then it is worth it. If painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of the home of Henry Highland Garnet, Isaac Mason, Albert Walker, Clarence Hawkins, and so many more, can affect policies and practices and values statements of local governments, nonprofits, churches and businesses, then it is worth it.
In my 30 years as an arts and nonprofit administrator and advocate, I have learned a great deal. But I know this: I don’t have all the answer, none of us do. So in my role as the director of the Kent Cultural Alliance, I will take up the mantle of my predecessor and mentor Leslie Prince Raimond, and I will show up, and listen, and I will actively support the use of the arts to engage our County in important conversations moving forward. This mural can start a new chapter.
John Schratwieser is the Director of the Kent Cultural Alliance (formerly the Kent County Arts Council). He spent seven years as the Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts. John served as the Director of the Prince Theater Foundation (now Garfield Center for the Arts) from 2004 – 2010 and has worked for two Tony Award Winning Regional Theaters – Signature Theater in Arlington, VA and Lincoln Center Theater in New York, NY. John has a bachelor’s degree in Theology from Fairfield University and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and Nonprofit Management from The George Washington University.
Beverly Smith says
As a life-long supporter of all the arts and an artist and art historian, I support your thoughts, so well expressed in your article. As a native Marylander I regret my education did not include African American or Native American history. Fortunately my life experiences have afforded me both personal knowledge and learned knowledge of both communities. Having spent 30 years living and teaching a large number African American college students in Detroit, I have had the opportunity to both teach and learn from them. It was an experience which I treasure for the rich friendships and knowledge obtained. Coming to Chestertown I was not expecting to find such a separated community. Having learned some of the history of this separation, I believe as you do, that everything we can do to over come this divide is important for all of us. Black Lives Matter is an important message and if it is painted in Chestertown I would support it, and as an artist would even help paint it. But, that is a gesture not a solution. We ALL need to have conversations which result in solutions to accomplish our united goals.
Philip Dutton says
I couldn’t agree any more, John. Thank you.