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Painting Black Spaces Red, Black, And Green: The Constitutionality Of The Mural Movement, Jesse R. Merriam

Jesse R Merriam

“We live by symbols,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote. This aphorism certainly rings true in many American inner cities, where murals depicting racial images, such as African symbols and portraits of famous African Americans, pervade the urban landscape. Indeed, the “by” in Holmes’s statement applies to inner-city residents with special force because these residents not only live close to murals, but also according to the symbols contained therein. Pablo Neruda, the Chilean writer and politician, is reported to have described this relationship in more populist language, claiming: “Murals are the people’s blackboard.” But Neruda’s statement obscures the fact that murals …