SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. (AP) - A mural depicting Spotsylvania County’s history could be expanded following criticism that it lacks diversity.
The county’s Board of Supervisors is scheduled to decide Tuesday whether to add six panels depicting prominent local African-Americans and Native Americans.
The mural, located in the meeting room at the county’s main government building, includes images of 19th-century navigator Matthew Fontaine Maury, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gov. Alexander Spotswood, Spotsylvania’s namesake. The county paid $12,000 to have it painted.
The late Sidney King, who painted the mural for the county in 1989, later added a small image of John J. Wright, who founded the first high school for the county’s black students.
A subcommittee of the Historic Preservation Commission proposed expanding the mural to reflect greater diversity. The commission endorsed the proposal last month.
Subcommittee member Roger Braxton told The Free Lance-Star (https://bit.ly/1hZL0uz ) that people need to see a representation of everyone in the county in its public buildings.
The images would be placed on two blank walls at either side of the existing piece. They would be drawn in a similar style for a “seamless, timeless effect,” according to a presentation of the proposal.
If the supervisors vote to proceed with the project, the county will have to solicit bids from artists.
The mural’s lack of diversity was first raised in 2011 by Virginia Organizing, a statewide grassroots group.
During county budget deliberations last year, Virginia Organizing and the Spotsylvania branch of the NAACP asked the Board of Supervisors to earmark $1,000 to expand the mural.
Helen Sanders, a local member of Virginia Organizing, said the mural was “stuck in time” and she’s excited by the proposal to expand it.
The expanded mural could include Joseph Despot, a minister and Spotsylvania native who was president of the Sunday School Union and an executive board member of the Mattaponi Association of Virginia; and Jeannette Garnett Wright, one of the first black women in Spotsylvania to register to vote, among others.
Braxton, who is a 1962 graduate of the then all-black John J. Wright Consolidated School, called the project a “labor of love.”
“We need to fairly reflect who we are,” he said.
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Information from: The Free Lance-Star, https://www.fredericksburg.com/
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