FORT WORTH, Texas — Wrapped around the top of Fort Worth’s iconic Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium is a tile mural that tells Texas history. But some don’t see it as a complete history.
In the middle of the mural, which was installed in 1937, is an image of two African-American men picking cotton.
“It appears to depict all different races of people working in harmony and if you drive past it at 30 miles per hour, maybe that’s what you get. But, that’s an incomplete portrayal of history,” said Zac Thompson, a Fort Worth businessman and father of three. “The reality is — in that time period — the African American workers picking cotton weren’t being paid. The white workers picking cotton were.”
Kyev Tatum, a pastor and longtime Fort Worth community activist, called the images hurtful.
“We need to talk about what’s happened since 1937. We went from picking cotton to picking a president, and that needs to be shown,” Tatum said.
Initially, after a friend raised the issue with him, Tatum called on the city of Fort Worth to remove the mural.
“The knee-jerk reaction for us was to take it down,” he said.
But after some reflection, Tatum has withdrawn his request.
“You know, that’s history, and we can’t change history,” he said. “It makes a much greater statement when you can add to that history.”
Tatum and Thompson are trying to work together to improve race relations in Fort Worth.
Initially they thought taking down the mural would be a step in the right direction. Now, Tatum said, he believes that finding a compromise would be better.
“We’ve become a society where it’s my way or the highway and we’re teaching the wrong message to our children, it’s not always your way,” Tatum said.
“If Zac and I sitting down here in this church represent a new start of having dialogues, and if this mural represents the opportunity for us to take this whole issue of monuments and statues to another level of discussion, then so be it.”
Fort Worth Arts Commission president Martha Peters said this was the first complaint about the mural that the city had received.
Even with the request withdrawn, the commission still plans to hold a forum in November to hear from the public.
“We want to encourage a positive discussion,” Peters said.
Peters added that the Fort Worth Arts Commission and the Historic and Cultural Landmark Commission will both make recommendations to city council about what action, if any, might be appropriate to take.
Thompson and Tatum would prefer that the city add new information about progress made since the mural was installed.
“There’s been a lot of accomplishments in our African American community since that time period and I think it’d be a great opportunity on a building like Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium to honor that,” Thompson said.
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