It’s a sunny Thursday afternoon at the floodwall in Northern Kentucky near the Ohio River. Artist Gina Erardi is working with a group of volunteers in Newport. They’re adding bold colors of blue, green, and teal paint to a mural depicting the city’s founder, General James Taylor and his wife Keturah.
The public art is celebrating the city’s 225th anniversary and will eventually showcase parts of its history with a series of murals.
Twenty-three-year old Erardi is the lead artist and mural designer. She said Taylor was a wealthy, young man who was able to create a vision for the city. She said he invested in schools, roads, dams, and a significant military barracks pictured in the design. He was also a slave owner and Erardi admits that worried her.
“I was worried about it, but I knew that this person was an important part of the story of Newport and the goal of this project in a whole is not just to put up a memorial of this person, but to honor the entire city’s history so it seemed like it made sense,” said Erardi.
This mural is approximately 37 feet long and 20 feet tall with a large image of the Taylors looking to the future. Northern Kentucky resident Julia Larimer calls the mural shameful and offensive.
”Even as a white person, I don’t think we should be celebrating that aspect of history even though he did many other things we’re still benefitting from today. And we can honor him another way besides a giant mural,” said Larimer.
“It’s a historical fact that Taylor owned slaves,” said Newport Assistant City Manager Larisa Sims. But she said that’s not what the city is commemorating.
“General Taylor and his wife, we’re memorializing them for their contributions to the founding of Newport. And in the year that’s Newport’s 225th anniversary, we feel like that’s appropriate,” said Sims.
It’s a view that makes sense to genealogist Julie Smith-Morrow. The 70-year-old lives a few blocks from the floodwall where the murals are being painted.
“I think it is wonderful that he’s being represented as a leader in the founding of this community. I don’t think that we should try to pretend to rewrite history,” said Smith-Morrow.
The floodwall is located in an area of high visibility. Jerome Bowles is president of the Northern Kentucky branch of the NAACP. He said Newport is marketing itself to the world as a welcoming city. He said he has serious concerns about putting up a mural of General James Taylor.
“You have to be very, very careful with images like this that can potentially cause conflict with the message that you’re trying to send to the world because that can be very painful to a lot of individuals, not only African Americans but the majority community as well,” said Bowles.
Northern Kentucky community activist Chris Brown says paying homage to Taylor in a mural isn’t okay with her even if he was the founder of Newport, because he still owned human beings.
“And now you’re gonna paint a mural so that all of the people of color can drive past and look at the man who once owned their great, great, great, greats. It is offensive, it is ridiculous, and it needs to not happen,” said Brown
Katie Bramell is with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. She said history is complicated. She said it’s hard to include context in public art like a mural.
“What’s interesting about this piece is it’s new. Most of these conversations have been around things that were put up a 100 to 50 to 60 years ago. But I think that we just need to pause and think and try to do better. Because I think the time has come to where we have to,” said Bramell.
The mural of General Taylor and his wife is scheduled to be complete by for the city’s 225th anniversary in December.
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