Sweet dreams
The Rev. C. Siddha Webber’s King Drive murals offer enduring themes of black hope, spirituality
Blocks from where thousands recently gathered in Bronzeville after the killing of George Floyd are two murals painted by the Rev. C. Siddha Webber, the late Chicago artist, poet and minister, that portray images of hope and spirituality among African Americans.
His murals — titled “Earth Is Not Our Home” and “Have A Dream” — stand sentry on opposite sides of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at 40th Street.
“They bring into the African American community that we are not just a people who are in a state of despair,” says Oafrikara Webber,
Webber’s daughter. “We have something that we can aspire to be. Hopefully, a kid passing by will see and read the murals and the messages.”
“Earth Is Not Our Home,” created in 1981 on the west side of the street, features abstract figures in blue, purple, orange and green surrounding the focal point of a Native American man in a gold headdress.
Over some parts of the mural, Webber, a founding member of the Chicago Public Art Group, painted psalms in white and the words “Love God.”
Oafrikara Webber, 44, was a child when her father painted “Earth Is Not Our Home.” She remembers helping paint it.
She says he was trying to convey a message
about spirituality, reflecting his faith as an ordained minister with a doctorate in theology from McCormick Theological Seminary.
“He wanted to make sure that everyone knew that there is a journey far beyond the realms of the earth,” Oafrikara Webber says, and to help “revitalize the community through art and culture,” which he had been doing since the 1960s.
Anytime her father painted a mural, he would talk with people passing by.
“In our community, you don’t see much art,” she says. “Many times, when he was working on his murals, he would be working on them alone, and a young kid or a teenager would come and say, ‘Oh, hey, that looks cool,’ and he would say, ‘Hey, get a paintbrush.’ And from there, that kid would get a paintbrush and start painting with him.”
Jon Pounds, former executive director of the Chicago Public Art Group, says the street mural movement that traces to the 1960s was meant to celebrate black life and culture.
Pounds remembers Webber, “a master artist,” painting “Have A Dream” in 1995 across the street from “Earth Is Not Our Home.”
“His work was done instinctively in the sense that he could see an opportunity and ponder it, design for it and be prepared to create it,” Pounds says. “He did not look for money first thing. He saw the opportunity and wanted to be able to affect change through his process.”
“Have A Dream” features several images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. over a blue-and-purple background and an excerpt from King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
Jeff Huebner, a Chicago art writer and mural historian, says he met Webber in 1995 while he was painting “Have A Dream” and was struck by his use of purple and gold.
“Those colors are associated with royalty, with dignity,” Huebner says, lending “more legitimacy to everyday people.”
In 2015, Webber repainted “Earth Is Not Our Home” and “Have A Dream,” which were beginning to fade. He kept the first faithful to its original scheme but reimagined “Have a Dream” to add a purple-and-gold portrait of President Barack Obama and an image of Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League team, which was stripped of its 2014 U.S. championship over age violations.
Oafrikara Webber says that, with “Have a Dream,” her father “wanted to extend the leaders so that the younger people and generations could look and actually say, ‘Look, that was my president, that was Obama.’ They can have somebody to look up to and say, ‘I know who this person is.’ Even with the kids on the Little League baseball team, ‘I know who those kids are,’ and give other kids in the community something to aspire to.”
Bronzeville native Dwayne Wriddley, an artist who works with the Chicago Park District, helped restore “Have A Dream.”
“This was my chance to paint with a legend,” says Wriddley, 51, who saw the muralist working by himself, asked if he needed help, then jumped in.
The two murals’ messages of love, unity and history “had already resonated in people’s minds of what we’ve been through, the struggles,” Wriddley says.
Though Webber died in 2016 at 72, his daughter says he lives on through the more than 50 murals he painted and efforts such as the Universal Alley Jazz Jam that he organized, presenting live jazz and spokenword poetry.
Sarah Webber, the artist’s widow, says, “He really dedicated himself to art,” aiming to “bring more people to Christ through his art and music.”
Pounds says people in Bronzeville loved Webber’s work because “it was truthful, it was complex, and it represented the real community.”
His murals are “not simply pretty pictures,” Pounds says. “They are pictures that are challenging. They are ideas and texts that require reading and reflection. They call on the community to pause and to think and reflect on what they’re reading and seeing and to take that reflection with them the rest of their life.”