More than 200 local school students painted a mural depicting the history of Selma from Native Americans to present day on the side of the Selma Welcome Center on Broad Street.
The project was the brainchild of Danielle Wooten, director of Selma’s Office of Planning and Development.
“We’re known for the civil rights era. We’re known for Bloody Sunday, and sometimes that’s all our children learn of the history of Selma,” Wooten said.
She said the point of the mural project was to get students to research the full history of this area that is now Selma from the Muskogee Indians, to the Civil War, Civil Rights and women’s suffrage to the present day.
The project started with research sessions at Payne Elementary, R.B. Hudson, Steam Academy and Selma High School. Then they moved into the design phase. Winfred Hawkins, an artist at Arts Revive, taught them artistic skills. Local artist Helene Taylor also volunteered to work with the students during the design phase.
“Working with the kids was the best part,” Taylor said. “I showed them Muskogee design. I gave them templates of butterflies and had them draw in them.”
After learning about design and artistic skills, the students had to take the history and the art to design a way to tell the story. They submitted about 180 drawings of their ideas for the mural. Artist Très Taylor, who also volunteered to help the students, said it was the drawing of Selma High student Kanyla Moore that was the inspiration for the mural.
“She made this butterfly with the city of Selma inside of it,” Taylor said. “When I saw that, I said that was it, that’s the theme. We’ll use butterflies as time points.” Taylor said he thought it was brilliant, especially since Selma is known as the Butterfly Capitol of Alabama.
Wooten said the city hired painters to paint the background, but the murals were the work of some 210 Selma City School students and community volunteers. From the start, this project has been a collaboration between a large number of people and groups.
“The city of Selma applied and received a grant from the Alabama State Council for the Arts to do an arts and history community mural,” Wooten said. “We partnered with the Selma Chapter of Links Inc., Arts Revive, Selma City School System, artist Winfred Hawkins, and artists Très and Helene Taylor.”
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