The controversy over the removal of a mural from a San Francisco High School continues as African American leaders are calling for the artwork to be preserved and students to be educated about its history.
“That mural must not come down,” Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The "Life of Washington" mural at George Washington High School in the Richmond neighorhood holds a mirror to American history, most importantly, what Brown called the “original sin” of slavery.
“Therefore, every student should know about that history and George Washington was complicit in that barbaric treatment of my ancestors,” Brown said.
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“It was said in The New York Times that those murals in that school are a national treasure. I believe that,” Crumpler said, “and you don’t destroy African American history or Native American history.”
The NAACP is also calling for the school to make education about the controversial mural mandatory for all incoming ninth graders.