COFO unveils outdoor mural honoring living, dead civil-rights legends

Jackson State University’s Office of Community Engagement presented a historic unveiling during its COFO Mural Celebration on Saturday, July 24, 2021 to pay homage to civil rights legends – living and dead – who blazed a path for equality. The mural, on the outside of the COFO building at 1017 John R. Lynch Street, is called “Chain Breakers.” It was painted by Jackson artist, Sabrina Howard and funded with an $8,000 grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission. COFO, an acronym for the Council of Federated Organizations and established in 1961, was a coalition of several major civil-rights groups in Mississippi. Under different names, they all coordinated to register voters and conduct other civil-rights activities. Among the distinguished guests were Fannie Lou Hamer’s daughter, Jacqueline Hamer Flakes; Jason Robinson, a grandson of Rose Elizabeth Howard Robinson; Louise Marshall, the first African American bookstore owner in the Washington Addition community; Regina Orey, a niece of Albert Powell who was the first African American florist in the Washington Addition; state Rep. Alyce G. Clarke of House District 69; and Angela Stewart, archivist for JSU’s Margaret Walker Center.

Dr. Heather Denné, director of Community Engagement, said, “We started this journey about two years ago to create art in our communities. We always wanted murals because of the lack of art.”

In 1971, the COFO building was reopened and now is operated by JSU as the COFO Civil Rights Education Center. It aims to preserve the past, cultivate young minds and foster the development of future leaders and community builders.

As an umbrella group, COFO aided many civil-right groups, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Denné said JSU commissioned Howard, who has created other eye-catching murals that have garnered widespread attention. Her work includes the Milton Chambliss Shoe Hospital mural in the 900 block of John R. Lynch Street and another called “Sowing the Seeds of Love” at the JSU/Blackburn Learning Garden near the main campus of the university. - L.A. Warren, Jackson State University Newsroom

“Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.” - Fannie Lou Hamer

By forming the Mississippi Mural Project, legendary actress and activist Aunjanue Ellis has found a way to banish art “deserts” in rural Black South communities by creating a virtual outdoor arts gallery. Their mission is to secure several abandoned walls within the state and adorn them with murals celebrating Black lives. Their goal was to start in the Magnolia/McComb area, and gradually move across Mississippi extending their artistic reach.

“We are inviting Black visual artists from the South, and beyond, to create original, visually arresting murals inspired by the words of such Black Southern thinkers as Mississippians Margaret Walker Alexander, Kiese Laymon, Jesmyn Ward and Fannie Lou Hamer,” said Valerie Boyd, author and co-founder of the nonprofit arts organization Kindred.

The MMP will also include Black artists from neighboring states such as Zora Neale Hurston from Alabama, Maya Angelou from Missouri, Ernest Gaines from Louisiana and Alice Walker from Georgia.

“By marrying these artists/activists’ words with original works of art by contemporary visual artists—and sprinkling these beautiful large-scale pieces throughout the state—the Mississippi Mural Project will, over time, create a statewide outdoor art exhibit, accessible and welcoming to all,” Boyd said.

The first mural unveiled by the Mississippi Mural Project, Daybreak, was completed by muralist Austin Miles from Richmond, Virginia. Daybreak is painted on an exterior wall of South Pike High School in Magnolia (pop. 2,400) just outside of McComb (pop. 12,000). The mural was created within two weeks with help from more than 300 South Pike High School students and funded by private donations.

Growing up in McComb, and known for her roles in The Help, Ray, Get On Up and The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel, Aunjanue Ellis attended South Pike High, and recalls her family having to drive to Jackson or New Orleans to expose her to the arts.

The neighboring towns of Magnolia and McComb are located about 80 miles from Jackson, the capital city of Mississippi, and about 110 miles from New Orleans.

The Mississippi Mural Project is an initiative of Kindred, based in McComb. The brainchild of Aunjanue Ellis, Emmy-nominated actress and daughter of Mississippi, Kindred produces programming that chronicles and celebrates Black Southern arts and culture.

Co-founded with author Valerie Boyd and filmmaker Christine Swanson, Kindred invites African Americans, wherever they live, to stage a cultural and political reclaiming of the South.

The great playwright August Wilson—who famously grew up in Pittsburgh but wrote fiercely about his Southern influences—once said: “The American South is the ancestral homeland for Black Americans. We don’t have to go all the way back to Africa. Our ancestral homeland is here.”

Kindred seeks to celebrate the Black South as our collective homeplace and to reclaim it as sacred ground for creativity, collaboration, and kinship.

Photos courtesy of: Valerie Boyd