The Cecil B. Moore mural has been restored after it was vandalized
Freedom Fighters member Vivienne Crawford said she felt like she “had been stabbed” after seeing the vandalized mural. “Cecil was like a surrogate father to us all," she said.
A phone call from a friend woke Karen Asper Jordan from her sleep early Sunday morning. A mural honoring her mentor, the late civil rights activist Cecil B. Moore, had been vandalized.
“I’m up now, so I’m going down there,” she told the friend before she hung up. But prior to leaving, she sent text messages and emails to members of the Freedom Fighters, an activist group that was formed and led by Moore during the 1960s.
When she arrived at the corner of Jefferson and Bouvier Streets, what she saw spray-painted across the bottom of the mural horrified her.
Freedom Fighters member Vivienne Crawford said she felt as if she “had been stabbed” after seeing the vandalized mural. “Cecil was like a surrogate father to us all," she said.
Crawford made those remarks during a news conference Thursday morning to celebrate the restoration of the mural.
Mural Arts, who commissioned the mural in 2000, has a policy that requires a response to graffiti and vandalism within 24 hours. Efforts to restore the mural started Sunday night and were completed on Tuesday. Police have not released information about possible suspects.
The mural, painted by Cavin Jones, is on the same property where Moore once lived. The mural depicts Moore with his family and on the bottom right, above a painted portrait of the activist in a military uniform, there is lettering that spells out his full name: Cecil Bassett Moore. Below that reads “husband, father, lawyer, activist, soldier, man of the people.”
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta said that he was “incredibly grateful” that Mural Arts responded so quickly.
“Hopefully now we can pivot and have a broader conversation about the impact [Moore] has had," he said. “When people drive down the street that’s named after him, do they really know and value all the work that he did?”
Moore was a prominent activist during the 1960s. He served as president of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP and was a member of City Council. He was a World War II veteran, defense lawyer, and led the protest to integrate Girard College in 1965. He died in 1979. Asper Jordan said Moore was a champion of education and mobilizing black Philadelphians.
Corin Wilson, a project manager at Mural Arts, said that she’s especially disappointed in the vandalism “during Black History Month, when we’re really taking time to honor and think about our legacy.”