A San Francisco school board voted to cover Controversial mural – not paint over

A controversial mural depicting images of slavery and dead Native Americans at the George Washington High School located in San Francisco will be left in place but covered with solid panels.

The San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education voted 4-3 on Tuesday, August 13, 2019 to cover the "Life of Washington" mural at the high school without destroying it.

This vote amends a previous decision. In June, the board had decided to paint over the mural or, if painting would cause too much delay, cover the painting with panels.

Tuesday's vote eliminates the option to paint over the mural.

The mural was created in 1935 by Victor Arnautoff and has stirred controversy because of depictions such as enslaved Africans working in cotton fields on George Washington's estate. In another section of the mural, Washington stands over a map of a young America while pointing westward as four white settlers with rifles walk over the body of a dead Native American. At the dead man's feet, another Native American, wearing a headdress, shares a pipe with an armed white man.

The artwork at the San Francisco high school has faced heightened scrutiny since April, when an ad hoc committee recommended that it be archived and removed. The 1,600 sq. ft New Deal-era art installation, painted by the Russian emigre Victor Arnautoff, depicts the life of Washington in 13 scenes and spans the space of the school's staircase and lobby.

According to NBC News, 'the artwork, painted in 1935 and 1936 was intended as a harsh critique of Washington's legacy as America's first president.'

According to the SFUSD press release, "Where we all agree is that the mural depicts the racist history of America, especially in regard to African Americans and Native Americans. It is important that we all share the agreement and acknowledgment of racism, discrimination, and the dehumanizing of people of color and women in American history," SFUSD President Stevon Cook said.

The mural will no longer be on public view at the school but will be digitized so that art historians can access it.

The actor and activist Danny Glover, who attended Washington high school in the 1960s, aligned with the local NAACP chapter in opposing the painting over of the murals.

"To destroy them or block them from view would be akin to book burning," he said. "We would be missing the opportunity for enhanced historic introspection that this moment has provided us."

Yet those in favor of covering the artwork have long argued that the murals depicted a violence for which the students received no context, allowing for unnecessary trauma without any sort of learning. Some wanted the mural painted over because of its dehumanizing depictions of Native Americans and enslaved people while others wanted it to remain in public view to remind students of the stark realities of the United States' history.

Teacher Virginia Marshall told KTVU-TV, "I am a great-granddaughter of a slave. I don't need a mural in my school or office to tell me I'm a slave."

While another had a different view, "Leave that mural alone," the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco NAACP, said at Tuesday night's meeting, according to KTVU-TV. "It tells the whole truth about Mr. Washington being complicit in the slave trade."

"I remember not having the emotional capacity in me to look up at the "Life of Washington" mural in my freshman year," Kai Anderson-Lawson, an indigenous student at the school, said at the board meeting before the vote. "The mural is very hard to look at due to the fact that it paints my people as victims.