An old mural of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.over North New Braunfels Avenue was quietly removed last week.
The mural towered over the four-lane North New Braunfels Avenue as it descended from I-35 area into the heart of the East Side.
District 2 City Councilperson Jalen McKee-Rodriguez wasn’t too sentimental about the mural’s departure. “Art is meant to be a fleeting moment in time that those who are lucky enough to experience it get to,” he said.
The issue was that the mural had lost almost all its color, and given that much of the graphic on its southern side was filled with a rainbow, colors matter.
“It's been faded for quite some time now, and I can only imagine how long people have been requesting some sort of update or some sort of, you know, what can we do about this?” he added.
McKee-Rodriguez is hoping the artwork will find new use somewhere, but for now he has another priority.
“We're doing an art contest, and I'm super, super excited about it. We're going to open it sometime in the next couple of weeks,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “We have a few major things we're working on doing.”
The first major hurdle is the MLK estate.
“We're waiting to hear back from the licensor of the MLK estate so that we can purchase the license to use MLK likeness and quotes. And if we can't do that, then that changes some of the rules,” he said.
The estate is cautious because there are those who would use MLK’s face and words to make money — something his estate won’t allow. The mural isn’t a money-making endeavor, and that needs to be made clear to the estate. Once McKee-Rodriguez hears back, the contest will steam forward, probably in the next couple of weeks.
Once that hurdle is cleared the contest will begin in earnest.
“We're going to have a panel of judges who are deeply connected to the East Side and black art, culture and heritage,” he said.
Entries will be examined by those judges by a series of agreed-upon parameters. The city councilman says then it will be up to voters.
“And then once they narrow it down, we're going to take it to a public vote,” he explained.
McKee-Rodriguez said there will be prize money for the winning artists. “There's going to be two winners, and each of the winners will receive, right now, the plan is $4,000,” he said.
There will be two winners because the mural is a two-sided piece of art.
Another bright spot: the councilperson said due to other projects going better than projected, this endeavor is already paid for.
“This is like every council members' dream, when projects come in under budget,” he said. “And so you have a little bit of extra funding that you can allocate to other projects.”
He expects completion by Jan. 15, King’s birthday.
