COMING TOGETHER
Community rallies to restore defaced 'No Place for Hate' mural
BOYERTOWN » Within 24 hours of the news that a “No Place for Hate” mural in downtown Boyertown had been defaced, community members rallied to reaffirm their rejection of hate and plans were underway to restore the iconic image.
About 50 people — including two Boyertown School Board members and a candidate for the board, members of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP, neighbors, parents and citizens — gathered in the parking lot of the Rita’s Water Ice, where the mural is located to see the damage for themselves and to make a statement of support for its sentiments.
The rally was organized by the Positive Parent Connection of Boyertown.
Chants of “No Silence!” and “We Want Peace!,” led by members of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP, reverberated
across East Philadelphia Avenue Wednesday night as the sunset.
People are also letting their wallets speak for them. By 1:30 p.m. Thursday, an online fundraising campaign organized by Building a Better Boyertown had already raised more than $2,000 toward
a $10,000 goal to restore the mural.
That effort will be helped by the Berks County Community Foundation and the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation, each of which has offered a match of up to $2,500 toward the goal.
“We’ve contributed
matching funds to help restore the mural because we feel that it’s important that our neighbors are able to make their voices heard at this moment,” David Kraybill, Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation president, said in a written statement. “We will meet this act of hateful vandalism with a message of inclusion, respect, and love. This is an opportunity for people from all walks of life to come together and make a statement — that hate has no place here.”
Those who wish to contribute by check can make it out to Building a Better Boyertown, and mailing it to the attention of Jillian Magee, Main Street Manager, at 3 E. Philadelphia Ave., Boyertown, PA 19512.
“No Place for Hate” is more than just a rallying cry on a mural, it is a program of the Anti-Defamation League and Boyertown was the first school district in Pennsylvania to be certified under its pro
gram, a certification it has repeated for years.
When the original mural was painted more than 10 years ago, it cost $8,000 for the artist and materials, “but we’re expecting, with COVID supply chain shortages and inflation, for some of those costs to be higher,” Magee told MediaNews Group on Thursday.
The effort will also include looking into ways to protect the restored mural from future vandalism, which will likely add to the cost, said Magee.
“That mural has been very important to our community and to see it vandalized like that has been absolutely crushing,” said Magee.
But as dispiriting as the vandalism has been, spirits have been lifted by community response “which was immediate and fierce,” said Magee.
“As soon as people saw it had been disparaged, they started to come forward and say this can’t be allowed to happen in our community. We are responding in full force that this act does not speak for Boyertown as a whole,” she said.
And that’s why the Boyertown School Board should speak out against hate, said board members Jill Dennin and Lisa Hogan, both of whom attended the rally and emphasized that they were speaking as individual board members and not for the board as a whole.
During board meetings in recent months, both have repeatedly asked the board to issue a statement denouncing racism, but there has been no vote.
“I’ve tried to bring up the issues of equity and racism at every meeting to get a statement from the rest of the board, but this is what happens when you don’t speak out,” said Dennin, standing in Rita’s parking lot, just four blocks from Boyertown Area Senior High School.
“It’s past time for the school board to speak out about these kinds of actions, to denounce these kinds of things,” said Hogan.
“This was totally predictable,” said Jon Emeigh, who is a candidate for the open Region 3 seat on the
Boyertown School Board. “It’s disgusting and sad, but these are the kinds of things that happen if you don’t speak out.”
“This is just part of a groundswell of small things which, when you add them up, is something we should all have seen coming,” said Nicole Zelcs, who arrived at the rally with a homemade sign reading “No Place for Hate. Boyertown Strong.”
“We have to stand up and declare this is something we cannot accept, to make it known that everyone is welcome,” said Zelcs.
“We are disgusted by this,” said Heather Stehman, who carried a sign that read “Racism Has No Place Here.”
She said her two children, ages 9 and 14, were brought up to accept everyone, “no matter the color of your skin, your religion, your country of origin of who you love,” said Stehman. “Acts like this do not represent this community and we do not want anyone to think this represents our community, we reject the stigma that we tolerate racism here.”
“I was absolutely shocked,” said Silvie Nichols, who lives across the street from the mural and works at the high school.
“I’ve lived here since 1969, so I’ve seen some things, but the town takes a lot of pride in this mural and I am surprised whoever
did this was brazen enough to do it,” Nichols said. “I look out of my window a lot and I wish I had seen who did this.”
Eastern Berks Regional Police Chief Barry Leatherman said upon discovering the vandalism, officers canvassed the area, looking for those with security cameras who may have captured the crime.
Police are requesting anyone with information to call 610-369-3050, 610-367-5550, or through Berks County Dispatch at 1-800-372-9111. Anonymous tips may be called into Crime Alert Berks County at 1-877-373-9913. Crime Alert pays cash rewards for tips leading to an arrest.
A stencil of a white nationalist group based in Texas — Patriot Front — was painted onto the mural, but its logo has since been covered up by more paint.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,
which tracks hate groups across the country, Patriot Front broke off from Vanguard America, another hate group in August 2017, after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
It is “an image-obsessed organization that rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism. Patriot Front focuses on theatrical rhetoric and activism that can be easily distributed as propaganda for its chapters across the country,” according to the center.
The group’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, led Vanguard America members during ‘Unite the Right,’ including James Alex Fields Jr., now serving a life sentence after being convicted of murdering anti-racist protester Heather Heyer after fatally driving his vehicle into a crowd of protesters, according to the center.
“That mural has been very important to our community and to see it vandalized like that has been absolutely crushing.”
— Jillian Magee, Main Street Manager