A group of artists have painted a large mural in of Breonna Taylor, an unarmed Black woman who was killed by police officers serving a no-knock warrant.
According to CNN, artists and volunteers painted the mural on a basketball court in the suburb and home to the Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland. The painting is 7,000 square feet and was led by Future History Now
, a nonprofit art collective. Future History Now creates murals with youth facing adversity in underserved communities.Future History Now co-founder Jeff Huntington and two of the group’s teaching artists, Deonte Ward and Comacell Brown, said the idea came to them after painting a mural of George Floyd.
“We wanted to choose a subject that threw attention to the fact that there is violence toward African American women, and we didn’t want [Taylor] to be forgotten about. At the time, it seemed like the George Floyd incident was getting a lot more attention,” Future History Now co-founder Julia Gibb told CNN.
“We think she and George Floyd symbolize a turning point in our culture and we wanted to, as this small town, be involved in this national conversation, and have children’s voices and feelings be involved in the national conversation.”
Taylor was killed in March by three Louisville, Kentucky, Metropolitan Police Department officers during the execution of a no-knock warrant. One of the officers has since been fired, but no criminal charges have been filed against the officers. The FBI is also investigating Taylor’s death and Taylor’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
The mural took 24 hours to complete and included another 12 hours to outline the grid and underdrawing. The mural was made in partnership with the Banneker-Douglass Museum and the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, said museum spokesperson Robert James.
It was also designed to be viewable from space through satellite imagery.