In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and countless other examples of police brutality, Asheville has taken steps to fight racial injustice in our home town and across America. Our city is built around strong community and its rich history bleeds into buildings, art, and infrastructure. This history while building our beautiful city up, is also built on the backs of black and brown people who have struggled to close the disparity between their education, median income, and job opportunities. according to Asheville’s 20-year vision for the city, “cultural diversity and social and economic equity are evident in all that we do.” Asheville has a unique culture built on community ties. Recently the community has been fighting for change. During the protests, windows of shops were broken. As a response, the shop owners reacted by boarding up their windows with plywood painted by local artists giving the movement a louder voice through art. This is exactly what AVL represents, but these pieces are on temporary canvases. On the Northeast corner of Patton Ave and Lexington street, a corner was spray painted but protesters. Instead of cleaning the graffiti off, our community should remember the minority groups of the past, and the protests of today. We propose the corner be painted over by a local artist to memorialize the movement and lives lost from police brutality. This is a permanent representation of how Asheville adapted as a community to fight for change. 

TLDR; Hire local artist to paint permanent artwork in honor of the BLM movement and for those who have lost their lives at the hands of police brutality over graffiti on NE corner of Patton and Lexington in downtown AVL.