BART’s art honoring Oscar Grant faces delay

A mural project at BART’s Fruitvale Station in Oakland is tense by nature: The agency has agreed to commission a piece of public artwork honoring a man one of its police officers killed.

But the tribute to Oscar Grant, gunned down on New Year’s Day in 2009, is particularly fraught. Grant’s family, BART officials and the transit agency’s police department each have a say in how the mural will appear. As a result, the project is delayed beyond its intended completion on the 10-year anniversary of the shooting.

Complicating the issue, Grant’s family is pressing BART to rename the station and a small side street for the slain 22-year-old. BART officials say they have no plans to change the station name, though board Director Robert Raburn said he understands the sentiment.

“I don’t know that a mural really

solves it all,” said Raburn, whose district includes Oakland. “Fruitvale Station will always be known for this tragic incident.”

The discussion of how to best depict Grant has plodded on for months. An early rendering of the mural by artist Senay Dennis, also known as Refa One, depicted Grant in a saint-like pose with his name floating in block letters nearby — a concept that family members and some officials rejected as overwrought.

Since then, the design has steadily evolved, and deliberations range from the color palette to the backdrop to the question of whether to include Grant’s name at all.

Still, BART officials say the artwork itself is a done deal. They signed a $30,000 contract with Refa One in August to paint a west exterior wall by the bus stops, below the platform where Grant was shot in the back by former Officer Johannes Mehserle while being pinned down by a second officer.

Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter by a jury that credited his testimony that he thought he was firing his Taser, not his pistol.

The shooting was cataclysmic for BART. Bystanders on a crowded train captured the killing on cell phones and posted footage on YouTube — a form of citizen documentary that witnesses would use over and over again to turn violence by police officers viral.

“Oscar is not just a dead young black man — his death amplified an international movement,” said BART board Director Lateefah Simon.

She heads the Akonadi Foundation, a social justice nonprofit that offers grants to smaller organizations. This year it provided $15,000 to the Oscar Grant Foundation, which is run by Grant’s mother and uncle.

Simon said she ran for BART’s board largely to be a voice for young people of color like Grant. She has participated in the mural discussions that began in 2016, when Raburn and former Director Tom Radulovich pitched the idea of a Fruitvale Station tribute. It followed a series of major police reforms at BART, including the creation of an independent auditor.

“BART wanted to honor the 10-year anniversary of Oscar’s death,” said Jennifer Easton, the transit agency’s art program manager. “So we’re stepping up and doing that, and it’s an important gesture. I’ll leave it up to the public to decide what that means.”

She and other staff members are working closely with Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, to shepherd the project along. They have met with the family periodically, reviewing different iterations of the design.

“I do think they have been pretty cooperative,” Johnson said of the transit officials, though she noted the difficulty of using art to help resolve a painful past.

Johnson would like to see her son represented as a man and a father — Grant’s daughter was 4 at the time of the shooting — not a holy figure.

At the same time, BART police officers are wary of being maligned. Police union President Keith Garcia asked that the image be “respectful and appropriate,” and Johnson said officials discouraged her from literally recounting what happened.

“They don’t want me telling the artist to draw a picture of my son facedown, and an officer with a gun,” she said.

Refa One said he is deferring to the family. He expects the artwork to be controversial even though BART commissioned it.

Grant has become a freighted symbol in Oakland, enshrined in poetry, rap songs and graffiti art. When Occupy protesters set up camp in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in 2011, they renamed the area Oscar Grant Plaza. And in 2013, Oakland-born filmmaker Ryan Coogler portrayed Grant’s death in the film “Fruitvale Station.”

Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, sees the mural as a form of atonement for BART. But he and Grant’s mother are adamant about changing the name of the station. Johnson also wants Grant’s name appended to a small roadway that buses use.

Naming the roadway would be a city decision, said BART spokesman Jim Allison. And rechristening the station could be a long and costly process. Grant’s family would have to submit a written request, hold public meetings about the proposal, submit to multiple layers of review by BART management and pay an estimated fee of $479,000.

Cephus Johnson was unfazed. “At some point we’ll do all that,” he said. “We just have to get this mural up first.”

Leah Millis / The Chronicle 2016 Wanda Johnson wants her son Oscar Grant depicted as a man and father.

Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle Artist Senay Dennis, who will paint the Oscar Grant mural, stands in front of his mural in West Oakland that honors Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle Bonnie Johnson, Oscar Grant’s grandmother, features artwork of Grant among the gallery of family photos that adorns a wall in her Hayward home. The portrayal of her grandson in his tribute mural is controversial.