This week marks two years since artists transformed South Tryon Street into a vibrant "Black Lives Matter" street mural, grabbing headlinesand drawing crowds to uptown Charlotte to see and photograph the work.
Organizers with Brand the Moth, Charlotte is Creative, BLKMRKTCLT, and the city of Charlotte planned the mural quickly. More than a dozen artists were given less than a day to come up with designs for each letter, and they began work amid a week of what had been volatile protests against police brutality in Charlotte and across the nation.
The two-year anniversary invites the question of what kind of impact the mural had.
On one hand, said artist Marcus Kiser, who designed the "S" in the Charlotte mural, "it didn't stop police shootings. It didn't stop mass shootings or anything. We still have those issues."
The city also never cut the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's budget, as some called for, though CMPD has made several policy changes, like requiring officers to warn people and exhaust all alternatives before shooting at a suspect, as The Charlotte Observer reported.
The North Carolina General Assembly also passed a trio of police reform laws that now require officers to undergo psychological exams before they are hired and require local agencies to track when officers discharge weapons or are subject to citizen complaints.
What the mural clearly voiced at the time, Kiser said, was a collective cry for those in power to respect Black residents.
"I think the impact of a community coming together to express how a community feels about a certain situation — I think that was a huge impact" Kiser said.
Today, the mural has cracked and faded under a steady stream of traffic. Like Carissa Brown, who works as a waitress in uptown, some residents would like to see it touched up.
"I think it would be cool to have the mural repainted and maybe artwork by other artists that resonate with the message being told," Brown said.
The city of Charlotte however says there are no plans to restore or preserve the mural for the time being.
