Reverse the Inaccurate African American Mural Decision Now!

On June 28, 2022 at the Leesburg Town Council meeting, an unsolicited proposal for a Black History mural that was designed to be placed on a historic building owned by the Town was approved by the Town Council despite the concerns expressed by the Friends of Thomas Balch Library Black History Committee, the Loudoun Museum, members of the Commission on Public Arts and the public.

In fact three members of the commission were removed because they dared to engage in peaceful protest. when they felt that their concerns were not being heard. The Town council criticized the voices of the three members as disruptive and voted to remove them from the commission.

The Mayor has been the recipient of political endorsements from the proposer and another council member's wife is the commission on public arts chair. It was this same chair who formally lodged the request to remove the three members, one of whom was an african american male.

It's clear that these two council members should have recused themselves from voting and by not doing so, violated their own ethics policy.

It's obvious that the peaceful protest lessons from Dr. MLK jr and John Lewis have not been shared with this town council.

The neglect of celebrating Black History in Leesburg cannot be overcome by ignoring the local voices that have fought for generations to achieve social and economic justice.

We need your help to overcome this bad and harmful decision. The town council of Leesburg wasted a valuable opportunity to celebrate history and instead continued the practice of distorting black history for economic gain.

This is a blight on this Council, elections matter! #blackhistorymatters