Artists across Atlanta will paint seven murals of Colin Kaepernick in response to demolished west end mural
In honor of Colin Kaepernick, seven murals will be painted all across Atlanta depicting the former quarterback – one of which has just been completed in time for Super Bowl LIII.
Popular Atlanta artist Fabian Williams called the initiative “Kaeperbowl” and said it is in response to a mural of the football hero he created in 2017 being demolished on Friday just two days before Super Bowl 53. Williams said he and a crew of other artists were granted approval by seven local businesses to put up new Kaepernick murals, V-103 Radio reported.
In a post on Instagram, Williams, who goes by the IG name occasionalsuperstar, celebrated the feat. “…But on the 3rd day, he rose. From the ashes to the masses.#HappyKaeperbowlSunday!”
The first mural, dubbed by Williams as the “1st entry into the #Kaeperbowl,” is located at 400 Northside Dr. Six more murals will be placed across the city at these locations.
Many people in Atlanta and elsewhere learned of Williams after he painted a mural of Kaepernick wearing Michael Vick’s #7 Atlanta Falcons jersey. On Feb. 1, that mural was destroyed and is now a pile of bricks on the corner of Fair Street and Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, according to a V-103 article.
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Williams was the one who discovered the damage.
“I found out by going to an interview with NPR this morning, at another mural I did down the block; that’s when I passed it. It took a second for me to register that the building was gone. I saw the bulldozer moving the bricks from the lot and realized they were demolishing the building,” Williams told V-103.
Williams says the timing is no coincidence. He believes the building was intentionally demolished on the first day of Black History Month, just two days before the Super Bowl.
“The biggest thing, I feel like, was it happened today. It’s the first day of Black History Month and you demolish that building? Come on man. I just can’t believe they would choose this day, unless it was just a middle finger,” he said to V-103.
“The fact that Kaepernick is at this point a living civil rights icon, and you choose Black History Month to demolish his symbol, that’s a f**k you. That’s what it is. Especially if it goes to the point where they demolish a symbol of the player they got rid of because he made a point to speak out on inequality and disparity,” Williams added in the interview.
The building previously stood between two church buildings and the Morehouse College campus, in Atlanta’s historic West End community. The building also featured, on the front wall next to Kaepernick, an interpretive painting of Muhammad Ali, or “#WakandaAli” in this case, with the boxer dressed as T’challa, the Black Panther.
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Williams said the mural was important. “This was a symbol. At least for the people who lived there,” he said in the interview.
The demolition of the building did not go unnoticed or unanswered. The symbol is being restored. And, that’s a promise.
“So I’m just gonna say it again, and say it louder. I don’t know whose idea it was, but to do it on February 1st in the home of Civil Rights? I’m just saying. It’s a statement. And since it’s a statement, there must be a response. And my response is to do it again, but to do it better,” the artist told V-103.
