Black Lives Matter focus of 6 street murals

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Black Lives Matter murals will be painted on six Kansas City streets today in what organizers believe is the largest project of its kind.

Other cities across the country have similar murals, most notably the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. But none — at least that organizers know of — match the scope.

This project, KC Art on the Block, spans 2,000 feet of street and will involve 1,000 volunteers, hundreds of gallons of paint and six local Black artists leading the designs.

Each mural will feature “Black Lives Matter” in big block letters, but each artist is filling in those letters with varying themes.

“Cities can affect lasting change when they come together,” said Damian Lair, who helped organize the project. He said that’s what today is about.

Lair, a managing director at a public affairs firm, said he returned from an out-of-town quarantine as the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum earlier this year. He felt the urgency to create a statement.

First, he wanted to paint “Black Lives Matter” on the street outside his downtown apartment, but then he had the chance to create something bigger.

Lair, along with friend Crissy Dastrup, board chairman of the Troost Market Collective, began asking community organizations to work on the project with them.

Planning started about three months ago.

Organizers wanted the project to be geographically diverse, within Kansas City limits. Locations, based on community input, range from the Northland to downtown Kansas City to South Kansas City.

Last month, the City Council voted 12-1 in support of the project, with a resolution saying that the city “recognizes the importance and significance of the Black Lives Matter movement,” and wants to “sanction the legitimacy of this powerful initiative aimed at advancing social justice and racial equity.”

The city is not paying for the murals, but will help control traffic and close streets to get the project done. Donations will pay for supplies and artists’ time.

The American Institute of Architects Kansas City is helping outline the designs on the streets, ensuring that the letters are properly lined up. A construction company is helping clean the streets.

Other organizers include the city of Kansas City, the Kansas City branch of the NAACP, Troost Market Collective and the Urban League of Greater Kansas City.

The size of the Kansas City project is “trendsetting,” Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League, said Thursday. “It is definitely history making. And it speaks to the desire of most Kansas Citians to bridge the racial divide.”

Today’s project is the first of a three-part push to create murals throughout Kansas City.

Up next: Vertical Black Lives Matter murals. Over the next six months, organizers will raise money to pay artists to install them on walls.

The last piece is to create a blueprint for others to add murals to their own neighborhood streets.