NEWS
BY MEERAH POWELL
A HISTORY OF
ACTIVISM
CALC to unveil social justice mural
during Whiteaker Art Walk
I
n the Whiteaker neighborhood, threads of the Black Panther
Party, Central American farm workers, LGBTQ+ community
and the Black Lives Matter movement are taking shape in a
mural that will be unveiled during the Friday, Aug. 26, White-
aker Art Walk.
“The mural’s theme is 50 years of social justice struggles,” says
Jessilyn Brinkerhoff, the muralist leading a group of multiracial
teens in designing and creating the artwork.
The Community Alliance of Lane County came together in
1966 to take a stand against the Vietnam War. Today, CALC still
stands for racial and social justice and is celebrating its 50th an-
niversary by creating the new mural in the Whiteaker.
“I gave us a layout and the structure of the design to work with,”
Brinkerhoff says, and then she says the youth chose the content of
the social justice themes and painted it together with Brinkerhoff.
Not only does the mural engage young people in the community
in art, the mural project also aims to teach a history of activism
that’s not in school textbooks, says Marion Malcolm, the coordina-
tor for the project.
Malcolm is a consultant for CALC and has been working with the
group since 1974.
“They know who Martin Luther King Jr. is,” says Malcolm, but
when asked to name other social justice leaders, the group of teens
didn’t offer many other examples.
Throughout the process of brainstorming and designing the mural,
various community activists are leading workshops and giving presen-
tations about social justice to the young students.
For example, Brinkerhoff gave a presentation on the history of mu-
ral painting, especially as it pertains to social justice and political art.
The teens themselves come from different backgrounds. “We have
around a dozen kids,” Malcolm says. The “majority are Latino and the
others are white.”
CALC worked to reach out to MEChA, a Latino, Hispanic and
Chicano student organization, as well as other organizations to bring
in teens.
“They brought a lot of Latino students in from as far as Thurston to
other parts of Lane County and made sure that they had a way to get
here every day,” Brinkerhoff says. “We brought in a very mixed
group and very intelligent, young leaders.”
CALC unveils the mural at an open house during the Whiteaker Art Walk 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Friday, Aug. 26, at CALC’s Peace and Justice Center, 458 Blair Blvd.; free to the public
with speakers, live music and refreshments.
• Native American activists have
temporarily shut down the construction
of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The
North Dakota protest centers on a
pipeline that would carry about half a
million barrels of Bakken crude per day
to Illinois where it would link with other
pipelines to transport the oil to Gulf Coast
refineries and terminals. The Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe says the 1,172 mile
pipeline route threatens the tribe’s
drinking water and would disturb sacred
and cultural sites. Native peoples from
across the country have traveled to the
Midwest to join the ongoing protest. Lane
County’s Sandra Shotridge, better known
to many as Tlingit Ladie and seen around
Eugene volunteering for political causes,
is raising money to help fund travel for
Shotridge and her son to help stand
against the pipeline. Her GoFundMe is at
gofundme.com/2k4qbzpw.
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eugeneweekly.com • A ugust 25, 2016
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