Los Angeles police are investigating the destruction of a famous mural of four members of the original Black Panthers that is on display in southwest Los Angeles, police said.
According to a police report, four swastikas were sprayed across the face of the civil rights activists.
A dozen artists had painted the two-block long mural, entitled “Our Mighty Contribution,” over two years, wrapping up in 2002, said Gregory Everett, a filmmaker and the curator of the mural. Located on the busy Crenshaw Boulevard, the mural chronicles the historical contributions of black people, Everett said.
“It’s just absolutely a travesty. It’s devastating. It is upsetting,” Jasmyne Cannick, a strategist and political commentator who alerted the police, said in a video posted on social media. “And we can’t stand for this.”
The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966, before expanding to cities across the country, and was controversial among law enforcement communities, in large part, because it used armed members to monitor cops, following instances of Black people being beaten and killed by police officers.
“A lot of people thought that they were a hate group, and that they had a disdain hate for whites. The only thing that the Black Panthers had problems with, was hate itself,” Enkone Goodlow, the artist who drew the Black Panthers on the mural, told CNN. “So, someone who has hate in their heart would come and put hate going across their face.”
Let’s see how far the Los Angeles police investigate this particular crime. It must be noted that a high rise in hate crimes have unfolded after Donald Trump became President of the United States and he has done very little to denounce such acts.
