ATHENS, Ohio — Over 50 community members gathered on Saturday to celebrate the unveiling of the eastside window mural at Mount Zion Black Cultural Center in Athens.
The new mural was created to temporarily replace Mount Zion’s stained glass windows that are currently being renovated. The mural honors historic Black figures in Southeast Ohio.
Keith Wilde, the artist who created the piece, collaborated with community members, local artists and students in the Andrew Jackson Davison Club at Athens Middle School. Volunteers put 538 hours of work into creating the mural.
The event kicked off with Tasha Attaway singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song commonly known as the Black national anthem. Attaway also had the crowd sing happy birthday to Ida Woodson Adams, president of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center.
“This occasion is a historic moment in the history of Athens, and in the history of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center,” Adams told the Independent.
Adams, who was baptized and married in the church, sees the mural as continuing “the ancestral dream of having a community place where people can gather and feel safe and learn.”
Other speakers at the event included Wilde; Fitz Read, adviser to the Andrew Jackson Davison club; Ohio University professors Andrea Frohne and Katherine Jellison; and Trevella Ford-Ahmed, media and communications director of Mount Zion Black Cultural Center.
After the stained glass is renovated, Mount Zion wants to use the mural as a travelling exhibit to highlight the history of Southeast Ohio.
The event closed out with a downpour of rain and Kezia Waters’ thunderous performance of “A Change Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke.
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Correction: A previous version of this article included misspellings of Andrew Jackson Davison’s, Olivia America Davidson’s, and Eliza Brown Davison’s last names. We apologize for the errors.
