‘Live with our scars’: Kansas City Black Lives Matter mural vandalism turns to new art
Tire tracks left by vandals on a Black Lives Matter street mural in the Northland are now surrounded by multicolored hearts, peace signs and fists with BLM written underneath.
Artists and volunteers spent Saturday morning at Northwest Briarcliff Parkway and Mulberry Drive. Rather than remove the vandalism, the artists were incorporating it into the mural.
“When they go low, don’t just go high. Go so high they run out of air trying to keep up,” said Harold Smith, the artist who designed the mural. “It’s to respond to it with an abundance of love, positivity and community.”
Ten days after six Black Lives Matter murals were painted across Kansas City streets, tire tracks and white paint were found on Smith’s project in the Northland.
At the time of the vandalism, Kansas City police said they were not investigating the incident but could if a police report was filed and the value of the property damage was determined.
Smith said he was not surprised to see his artwork vandalized. However, he quickly chose to make something beautiful out of it. He wanted to show the community, and the vandals, that a hateful act would not stop a movement.
On Saturday, Smith said the work was more of a creative endeavor than the painting of the original mural had been. Volunteers, he said, had something to work with rather than a blank canvas.
Adrianne Clayton and Vivian Bluett, artists who designed other Black Lives Matter street murals in the city, said the project showed love prevailing and existing alongside hate.
“Harold could’ve allowed the tire marks to destroy his beautiful creation, or you can overcome it with love,” Clayton said.
Bluett said the artwork around the vandalism was indicative of the Black experience in America.
“Black people have always had to live with our scars,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that we are used to being scarred but we are also used to rising and still living and still breathing, still creating, still letting those scars not necessarily define us but enhance who we are.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 12:39 PM.
