Why are some people asking that question now? How do we consider a question like that? Well, let us put that question in an historical context. The first African slaves were sold in Jamestown Virginia to English colonist in 1619. Did black lives matter? Over the next 246 years, African Americans were slaves. Bought and sold. Often brutally treated with no recourse in the law. Did black lives matter?

While Frederick Douglass was a fugitive slave, he was considered stolen property. He was not a person in the eyes of the law. Harriet Tubman, who spent a lifetime fighting injustice, believed strongly in those hallowed words, “We hold these truths to be self – evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was her patriotic duty to fight injustice. Even though her life did not count according to the Constitution.

The Fugitive slave Act 1850, Federal government to return slaves to owners. Dred Scott Decision, 1857. Chief Justice Taney, from Maryland, concluded Slaves cannot be citizens and are in fact, property. President James Buchanan agreed. Plessy vs Ferguson, 1896. Supreme Court decision. Segregation is legal. Jim Crow laws last 100 years. Housing, banking, education, churches, restrictions on voting. Do black lives matter?

The Tulsa race massacre, 1921. Did black lives matter? Black soldiers returning home from World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam, who fought with dignity, still faced legal segregation in housing, banking, education, voting and even water fountains. Addie Mae Collins. Cynthia Wesley. Carole Robertson. Carol Denise McNair. Killed in a Birmingham church bombing in 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The Gospel of Freedom, 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. killed 1968. Congressman John Lewis spent a lifetime fighting injustice. That is what a patriot does. What he left undone. Falls to us.

Elijah McNair. George Floyd. How do we show that black lives matter to us today? Paint the Mural on High Street.

Wayne T. Gilchrest is the former Congressman for the 1st District of Maryland.

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.

Under the present circumstances in America today, I’ve had a number of recent conversations about my college alma mater, Washington & Lee University. As the second of three generations to graduate from W&L, I have deep ties with the University as well as great appreciation for the value of my four years there.

Robert E. Lee’s Tomb – Washington & Lee University

I attended W&L in the early ‘70’s, when it began admitting students of color. My fraternity was the first to desegregate, a matter of no small controversy at the time. The next controversy, which seems almost quaint three-plus decades later, was whether or not to admit women. In the mid-’80s, despite much dismay and dissent among its alumni, Washington & Lee became co-ed. Fast forward a little more than three decades, and W&L is once again at a tipping point: the controversy over its namesakes’ connections to slavery.

Our society — including the institutions of higher learning that produce many of our political, business and civic leaders — needs to accept responsibility for the legacy of racism in order to move forward toward greater peace, justice and opportunity for all. This is the change that our times now call for, loud and clear.

This applies to W&L no less than to scores of other institutions around the country. Princeton University has set a bold example by striking Woodrow Wilson’s name from its business school. Of note, around 20% of W&L’s most recent graduates requested, and were granted, the omission of both Washington’s and Lee’s profile images from their diplomas.

Over the years, the University has established numerous student, faculty, alumni, board and administration special committees tasked with resolving challenging issues brought by changing times. Co-education, college affordability and diversity are just a few of those issues addressed by rigorous examination, debate and resolve. The challenge now is the University’s actual name, which honors the memory of men who owned slaves. In particular, Robert E. Lee not only led a Confederate army in the fight to protect slavery, his harsh conduct as a slave owner is well documented.

In my own opinion, the values and traditions upheld and advanced by the University today are no longer well served by its namesakes. I believe that responding in a positive and proactive way to the call for change would be the wisest course. W&L is highly competitive and widely respected, and continues to send well-educated young men and women into the American workforce and society every year. A change in name will not detract from its value and reputation in the national higher education community.

Whatever changes the W&L trustees and administration ultimately decide will likely be contentious. Change always is. But I believe that change and progress are conjoined, and for the continued advancement of the University, I hope for both.

Matt LaMotte graduated from Washington & Lee University in 1974. He presently teaches American history and U.S. government courses at Saints Peter & Paul High School.