WILMINGTON — While Tuesday evening ended with pleasant weather, the lingering impacts of Hurricane Isaias, including persistent power outages, will push this week’s Wilmington City Council meeting items — including the contentious Black Lives Matter mural — to mid-August.
Related: Black Lives (do) Matter: City of Wilmington tries to manage controversial proposals
According to a city spokesperson, all of the items originally slated for council’s Tuesday night meeting will now be pushed to the August 18 meeting. That includes two resolutions concerning a public mural with the message ‘Black Lives Do Matter’ and a ‘free expression plaza.’
The resolution changes the original intent of artists and organizers from a ‘ Black Lives Matter’ mural to read ‘Black Lives Do Matter.’ The change is the result of public concerns, voiced loudest by councilman Charlie Rivenbark, over both the mural and the Black Lives Matter movement, which he described as racist and divisive.
Organizers behind the project objected, saying the words were also a slogan representing their call for social justice, independent of the movement itself. City staff suggested adding the word ‘do’ and adding an end-block reading ‘End Racism Now’ to distance the mural from the movement — if approved, those words will be “adopted by the city as its own statement,” according to the resolution.
There is also a resolution to support a ‘Designated Public Forum for Artistic and Cultural Expression.’ Originally put forward as a companion to the BLM mural, the free expression plazas won’t likely materialize until next year. According to the city’s proposed resolution, staff would use the ‘Black Lives Do Matter’ mural as a ‘pilot program’ to “help inform staff of what works and what does not work” and then refer the issue to the city council’s governance committee. That committee will return a report on the issue — but it will have until April 30 of next year to do so.
Related: City to vote on $420,000 contract to Good Shepherd for emergency rental and utility assistance
Also delayed until-midmonth is a $420,000 proposal to disburse federal funds from the CARES Act to Good Shepherd to help low-income families with rent and utility payments.
