After we posted our GoFundMe to raise an MLK billboard over the newly erected Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas where Tracie grew up, it caused quite an uproar (more than 200 comments, a lot of them negative and abrasive, many of them positive and supportive). We must be doing something right.

We are just a few hundred dollars away from our goal.

Please help us by donating or sharing on social media.

Here’s the link.

And thank you to everyone who has already donated and/or shared. This really means the world to us — literally. It’s the world that we inhabit and it’s the world where we are raising our children.

To quote Dr. King, “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.” That’s the line that will appear with our billboard, which will run starting next week and through most of African American History Month. It seems only fitting. The Sons of Confederate Veterans raised their monument, which includes the “Confederate Flag,” on MLK Dr. in Orange. Our billboard will look down on the memorial from across the road.

You can see the billboard here. It will be the second that we’ve raised.

Here’s a note on the painting above. It resides in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. It was painted in 1865. The following is a transcription of the label that appears with the work.

*****

Constant Mayer [artist]
American, born France, 1832-1911

“Recognition: North and South”
1865

In “Recognition: North and South,” a wounded Confederate soldier has just discovered the body of his dead Union brother, whom he cradles. The landscape echoes the contrast of life and death represented by the two figures, with a lush, green forest appearing behind the Confederate soldier and a decaying tree stump hovering above the mortally wounded brother.

This powerful painting captures the sorrow of the Civil War (1861-65), one of the darkest chapters in the history of the United States. Neither man in this work wins, an idea that would have resonated with Americans who, around the time this painting was produced, had endured four years of death and destruction and were searching for meaning in the unprecedented carnage.

Image via the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (public domain).