> Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 16:52:24 -0500
> Subject: [fla-left] [news follow-up] Apology plaque splits City Hall
>
> "This city needs to make a statement to black
> people" --Omali Yeshitela, National people's
> Democratic Uhuru Movement
>
> Apology plaque splits City Hall
>
> St. Petersburg council members will debate how to
> apologize for a racist mural torn down in 1966.
>
> By KELLY RYAN
>
> =A9 St. Petersburg Times, published June 12, 1999
>
> ST. PETERSBURG -- City Council Chairwoman Bea Griswold wants
> her colleagues to discuss the propriety, wording and
> placement of a plaque that would apologize for a racist mural
> that once hung in City Hall.
>
> Griswold has placed the topic on Thursday's meeting agenda.
> She said that when the council voted in September to
> "apologize," she doesn't think the council intended to
> apologize directly and permanently to activist Omali
> Yeshitela. Yeshitela went to prison in 1966 for tearing the
> mural off the wall and racing from City Hall.
>
> In recent days, Chief of Staff Don McRae has talked
> individually to council members about the wording of such a
> plaque, which is proposed for a space on the grand staircase
> leading to the council chambers.
>
> "There has been so much history in that building, we could
> put plaques all over the front steps," Griswold said. "Unless
> we're going to say City Hall is a history museum for plaques,
> why start?"
>
> In 1966, Yeshitela -- then known as Joe Waller -- marched
> into City Hall and tore down a mural depicting racially
> caricatured black people entertaining white picnickers at the
> beach. Yeshitela is now the chairman of the National People's
> Democratic Uhuru Movement.
>
> The space where the mural hung has remained blank.
>
> Griswold is also asking council members to place a state flag
> next to a U.S. flag along that wall.
>
> Last fall, at the urging of an activist group, council
> members unanimously agreed to apologize. But they never said
> to whom and for what, setting the stage for the debate
> Griswold engaged Friday.
>
> Since the council vote, McRae has drafted wording for a
> plaque that would describe the event. The proposed language
> characterizes the mural removal as the beginning of the civil
> rights movement in St. Petersburg and apologizes to the
> community and Yeshitela.
>
> In the past week, McRae has contacted council members seeking
> their input.
>
> Griswold has a number of concerns about the plaque. She
> doesn't think one should be placed in such a prominent
> location, she doesn't like McRae talking to council members
> individually to get "consensus by survey" and she doesn't
> think the council meant for any apology to be in the form of
> a permanent marker.
>
> Yeshitela said Friday that he won't engage in "an ideological
> debate" with Griswold. He said he doesn't care whether the
> city apologizes directly to him -- he says a general apology
> for the mural's existence validates tearing it down.
>
> But he said some community members might see such a personal
> apology as an important, healing gesture to "right a wrong."
>
> "I think this city needs to make a statement to black
> people," Yeshitela said. "I truly think it is one of the most
> progressive gestures made by any city in this country."
>
> Council member Bill Foster said he doesn't recall the council
> deciding to apologize to Yeshitela, either. A copy of the
> resolution from City Clerk Jane Brown's office indicates that
> the council voted to apologize to the community.
> =46oster said the council never even decided on a plaque.
>
> Council member Rene Flowers was not on the council at the
> time, but she said the city should apologize to the
> community. She said she doesn't think today's city leaders
> need to apologize to Yeshitela because they are not the ones
> who hung the offensive mural.
>
> But council member Frank Peterman sees the issue differently.
>
> He said Griswold is "playing with semantics" and said he was
> voting to apologize for the mural and to Yeshitela. He said
> the plaque is an issue because some council members are
> uncomfortable with the "past confrontational situation we've
> had with him and the Uhuru group."
>
> "It should act as a cleansing effect," Peterman said.