An oral history of Sweet Auburn’s John Lewis mural, from a living legend to a new Atlanta landmark

Intended to honor an Atlanta icon, the John Lewis “Hero” mural in Sweet Auburn has itself become iconic. 

Though only 11 years old, the artwork is well on its way to becoming a historic Atlanta landmark, with plans in the works to refresh its paint and construct a park at its base. 

As often happens in history, the origin of the mural is also fading into one-liners – or nothing at all – in the growing parade of tourism promotions, political events and Hollywood productions that include it. A tale of collective effort and a bit of coincidence, it is one rarely told by all of the major participants. 

Towering over a parking lot at the southwest corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. Drive, the mural is of monumental scale, painted roughly six stories tall on the sheer wall of a residential and commercial building at 171 Auburn. 

Lewis, who died in 2020, was a living legend of the Civil Rights movement and a longtime Atlanta political figure, serving as a City Council member and then 17 terms as a U.S. congressman. An important figure in the battle against institutional racism and Jim Crow segregation, Lewis chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was an original Freedom Rider, was badly injured by police violence in the “Bloody Sunday” Selma march, and was a speaker at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom famed for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. 

The mural depicts Lewis speaking during the March on Washington, one hand gesturing, with the word “hero” above him and a device identifying him as “John Lewis, Civil Rights icon.” On an adjacent, lower section of the wall is painted his signature and a quote from his speech at the March: “I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”

The Alabama-born Lewis was not from Sweet Auburn, the section of Auburn Avenue that, a century ago, became a bastion of Black business independence and the more recent Civil Rights legacy of King. But Lewis was a longtime political supporter of the community and the mural’s location brings all sorts of symbolism. It faces the end of Auburn, where King’s birthplace and church – where Lewis was a congregant and his funeral was held – still stand and is visible from the curve of the Downtown Connector, a highway plowed directly and deliberately through Black neighborhoods. 

I recently spoke to several key figures for an oral history of the mural’s creation and a pre-history of the ongoing attempts to preserve it. Most of the interviews were conducted by phone. The mural artists, The Loss Prevention, could not be reached for interviews, but the project manager discussed the project in emails in October for a story about another Civil Rights mural in Sweet Auburn. The quotes have been edited and sometimes put in a different sequence for clarity.

Inspiration

The mural was created by an arts collective called The Loss Prevention, co-founded by Maggie White and Sean Schwab, that paints artworks for corporate and nonprofit clients, as well as its own inspirations. The John Lewis work is part of a “hero” series featuring other activists. Others in the series include Civil Rights leader Evelyn Lowery, sexual and reproductive rights activist Dázon Dixon Diallo, and Joan Garner, an LGBTQ activist who vice-chaired the Fulton County Commission. The Lewis edition – far larger than the others – came about through the coincidence of the congressman’s 2012 re-election campaign and a chance meeting at Binder’s Art Supplies and Frames in Buckhead, where Schwab and artist Dr. Dax were painting another now-iconic mural honoring the long-lost Limelight disco nightclub. 

Maggie White: “During my time at GSU in the ’90s, it stood out to me that Sweet Auburn, one of the most historically vibrant and important districts in history, wasn’t visually represented as such. Then I met Sean, and soon after, we met John Lewis. Sean and local artist Dax were painting a mural at Disco Kroger and Congressman Lewis walked out of Binder’s art supply store. We all dropped what we were doing to meet him and shake his hand. I’ll never forget meeting him for the first time and it was soon after that when Sean and I decided to honor him with a mural.

“I was so excited. And then soon after that, [Lewis] randomly came to an Indie Craft Experience market in the West End with his aide and I introduced him all around the place.

“Sean and I wanted to paint a mural of him, and I just happened to mention it in conversation with a vendor at my art gallery.  It turned out that she was the sister of someone who worked for the campaign, and she passed it along – our hope to honor him.”

That was Bess Weyandt, whose brother Matt was Lewis’s campaign manager. Lewis-themed art was already on their minds, as Bess was putting her artist skills to work on campaign items featuring a mugshot of the congressman from one of his Civil Rights activism arrests and his “good trouble” slogan.

Matt Weyandt: “It’s hard to remember this now, but [Lewis] hadn’t quite sort of reached the same kind of almost mythic status he has now. This was before Freedom Parkway was John Lewis Freedom Parkway… There weren’t many things around the city named for him like other Civil Rights leaders. I was trying to think of different ways to bring his relevancy to the foreground. We came up with this idea of doing a mugshot poster and T-shirt. I didn’t know how he was going to react to having a mugshot on a poster or T-shirt. He loved the idea. He’d seen a Nelson Mandela mugshot T-shirt and he wanted his own.”

When Bess relayed The Loss Prevention’s idea, Matt started talks quickly, and soon drafts of the image were circulating. For Matt, it stirred memories – that still make him emotional – of his work at Grady (now Midtown) High on a senior class project of a Civil Rights mural whose ribbon-cutting Lewis attended.

Weyandt: “I said, ‘Great, that sounds awesome.’ So I got in touch with Maggie and Sean and talked to the congressman about it. 

White: “The idea for the mural didn’t come from Congressman Lewis’ campaign team. I’ve seen that mistake in print before, and I just think it makes a difference knowing the idea came from his constituents versus the campaign.”

Weyandt: “Instead of being a planned out [event like] we’re going to build a statue to someone and put it in the state capitol, it’s an interesting way for a landmark to come about. It was kind of an organic, community-driven process to create this thing, which is like Congressman Lewis and what he was about.

“At first, we didn’t know the scale of it. There were a couple of versions. There was a smaller version when we didn’t know the wall was going to be so big.”

Choosing Sweet Auburn

In retrospect, the site of the mural seems obvious: a huge, blank wall of the very building that housed Lewis’s re-election campaign headquarters just three doors to the west, the same space then President Obama’s local re-election office previously called home. It wasn’t so obvious then, and getting a mural done required fundraising to cover The Loss Prevention’s $10,000 and paint costs and permission from an Israeli ownership group based in California. Real estate help came from Gene Kansas, a preservation-minded developer and broker who had leased the space to Lewis (and Obama), and funding was led by now-State Senator Sonya Halpern, whose art world experience included board service at the National Black Arts Festival and Obama’s arts advisory commission at the Kennedy Center. She raised money from her husband Daniel’s company, Jackmont Hospitality, and Mack Wilbourn, another major airport food contractor. Permitting assistance came from Kwanza Hall, then a City Council member, later the brief holder of Lewis’s seat in Congress.

Matt Weyandt: “Gene had helped us find the campaign office. I didn’t have that wall in mind. I just asked Gene. He immediately thought of that building and the wall.”

Gene Kansas: [Matt’s request was:] “‘Can you help us find a mural [space] in Downtown Atlanta?’ I was like, why not do the mural where your campaign re-election headquarters is and do it in Sweet Auburn? Because the gravitational pull that can have for the historic district is meaningful. And they loved it.

“Interestingly, though, the owner of the building, of 171 Auburn, [at the time] was an international owner, and they didn’t even know who Congressman Lewis was. And they were like, “‘Why should we put a huge mural on our building? We could go sell our space for advertising …’ I don’t fault them, but it took them some convincing. [He explained] this is a return on your investment. It’s just not money. It’s Civil Rights history. And they appreciated that.”

Weyandt: “Sean was going to do all the work pro bono, but we still needed to buy the supplies, and it was a really big wall and we needed to get [a] lift. I reached out to Sonya Halpern… I had met her and her husband Dan from just doing campaigns and doing the state [Democratic] Party. She helped to raise the money.”

Sonya Halpern: “He asked if I’d be willing to help get the money together, and I jumped at the chance. I loved the size and scale. I knew it was going to be amazing, but I did not anticipate – I don’t think anybody could have anticipated – how iconic that mural was going to become.

“It wasn’t even a week [since] I had gotten commitments in order to know that we could move forward with the project and paint could be bought and all that materials that would be needed to make it happen.”

Unveiling

The mural was painted in the summer of 2012 and unveiled on Aug. 24 in a ceremony featuring Lewis joining Schwab in dotting the “i” on his name as a finishing touch. 

Gene Kansas: “The day of the unveiling of this new work of art and this mural, Congressman Lewis came out and dotted the “i” on his name, which was fitting. It was absolutely fitting. I just loved it.”

Matt Weyandt: “He loved it. That was really gratifying to see how much he appreciated it, too.”

Sonya Halpern: “We used that as an occasion to really give Congressman Lewis his flowers that day while he was still alive and really showcase the powerful man that he is, the great example that he is, to so many of us.

“Going back to the scale and the size of it, it’s really powerful. I think he himself felt maybe he wouldn’t have expected to feel so emotional in seeing it, but he really felt emotional when he saw it and indicated it in the things he said to the crowd as well. You know him; he’s always going to remind you of the things we need to continue to do. He told the story of just trying to do the right thing. Now, why is that important? Don’t forget, it’s not just the mural of him – it’s got the word ‘hero’ on it. It’s an opportunity to talk about, what is a hero, who is a hero, what does it mean to be a hero and how can you be one…?”

Kansas afterward interviewed Lewis on a podcast called “Sidewalk Radio” and got his first-hand thoughts about the mural and public art. Lewis said in part: “Without the arts, … the Civil Rights Movement would have been like a bird without wings. Somehow, and in some way, artists were able to tell us something about the distance we’ve come, about our past, our present, but also about our future. It moves people in different ways and in different forms. It may move you to laugh or just to smile. It may move you to cry and shed some tears. But it could move you to stand up and make you more determined to engage in a struggle to make things better for all humankind.”

Planning for preservation

Despite the fanfare, there was no sign that the mural would become an icon or last even as long as it has. In fact, the Butler Street Community Development Corporation (CDC), a nonprofit that owns several historic properties in the area, had long had other plans for the parking lot that would allow the mural to be visible. The parking lot was once home to a long-gone commercial building where the Bronner Brothers sold haircare products. CDC Board Chair Alfonza Marshall says the CDC pegged that site for affordable housing and commercial redevelopment. The original agreement with the landlord includes Weyandt’s prediction the mural would become a “neighborhood and city landmark” – something even he didn’t fully appreciate at the time – but also gives the right for it to be painted over. At some point, a lower right-hand corner of the wall panel with the mural on it was removed.

But times have changed as the mural’s stature has grown. A new retail ownership group took over in 2019, with partner Salim Jetha expressing interest in funding a roughly $20,000 immediate refresh and perpetual maintenance of the mural – an idea still in discussion with the residential ownership, commercial tenants, and the local nonprofit Sweet Auburn Works. (Big Bethel AME Church continues to hold a ground lease.) Then came Lewis’s death in July 2020, after which the mural became a massive gathering spot and impromptu memorial. A rededication ceremony followed in 2021. The gathering after Lewis’s death changed the CDC’s thinking. It’s now working with SCAD, Sweet Auburn Works, and other organizations to replace the parking lot with a park, a long-term concept that would follow other pending redevelopments, starting with one across the street called Sweet Auburn Grande that could start in late 2024.

Maggie White: “Last year, we discussed the possibility of touching up the John Lewis mural with the current owner of the building and he mentioned possibly raising funds for that, but we haven’t done that yet.”

Salim Jetha: “It’s iconic, and I think it’s the correct representation for Sweet Auburn. I would be appalled if there was a move to paint over it… I think we should do [a paint refreshing and long-term fund] because it’s the representation for the whole community. It’s never going to be something that makes a resident more likely to rent a unit there or even a business tenant more likely to come. It’s not an issue of money. It’s not an issue of profit. It’s an issue of doing the right thing. It should not become shabby-looking on a building you own.”

Alfonza Marshall: “The lot was really going to be something else because we as the CDC – it was a parking lot to us. It never was envisioned as a park. But as you know, John Lewis passed away in July 2020 and what happened was, a lot of people came down and gathered and reflected and connected. We as a board said there’s no way we can do something else on the site. In a historic district, you really cannot do anything unless you get the community’s support. And because this particular mural became iconic internationally, can you imagine us saying, ‘Oh well, too bad, we’re gonna build a parking deck or housing or something else’?

“The focus of the [planned] park is really for you to come and reflect and reconnect and just relax, so to speak…. and also the history of Sweet Auburn in and of itself. When you come to the park you’ll think about him, and not just him but… all those that came before you and what they’ve done.”

Gene Kansas, speaking on the day a woman attempted to burn King’s birth home elsewhere on Auburn, emphasized the importance of such preservation work and the ability of digital images to at least serve as backup: “The future of our history is not a foregone conclusion. It’s not necessarily gonna be here. You have things like arsonists and tornadoes and demolition via neglect and quote-unquote progress through new development and things like that. But you know, we gotta make the most of it.” 

Emerging as a landmark

Meanwhile, the mural’s stature continues to grow as it gains meaning from a number of factors. It was part of a new appreciation of Lewis in the years before his death that also was fueled by his prize-winning graphic novel series “March” and his involvement in the political firestorms of the Black Lives Matter movement and Trumpism as Georgia entered the national spotlight. The mural is also a component of new momentum for Sweet Auburn’s preservation and revival on its own community terms, a process aided by Sweet Auburn Works Executive Director LeJuano Varnell. And there’s the city’s growing appreciation for public art in general. The Loss Prevention has continued that work, including another recent mural in Sweet Auburn honoring Civil Rights leader Roslyn Pope and the city’s first Black Girl Scouts troop.

Matt Weydant: “Maybe unappreciated isn’t the right word, but he hadn’t been formally as recognized [as some other Civil Rights leaders]. A lot of times, these things happen after people die, and it was kind of nice to do it when they’re still here. It sounds weird, but I think there was a little bit of taking him for granted.”

Sonya Halpern: “One contextual thing you gotta remember going back a decade or so, we were not as familiar in Atlanta with public murals as we are today. So this was a really unique kind of idea and not just something that had been seen all over the city in all parts… This is the power of the arts. This is exactly what the arts do. It just connects to people and communities.”

Maggie White: “I think about [Pope] and the other greats during this time in Atlanta and how several Atlantans from that time have told me they felt they were ‘standing on the shoulders of giants,’ referring to the Civil Rights leaders, and how they wish that were still the case, that communities and children don’t have that same sense of guidance. I wish we had that, too, and visual representations of some of these Atlantans through murals is a small way that we can contribute.”

Gene Kansas: “I’m happy to be part of it, but what makes me most happy is I knew the person behind it, and I know the power that public art holds… Putting the mural in Sweet Auburn says Sweet Auburn is important enough to have Congressman Lewis’s mural.”

LeJuano Varnell: “What the John Lewis mural could be is a blank wall that turns it back on community, and now it’s a draw… It’s probably our most Instagrammable moment in the neighborhood.”

Alfonza Marshall says that for many historical figures, without such icons, “they’ll fade into history. And the courage that Congressman John Lewis took at a very young age to fight for Civil Rights – I got young kids, and I can barely get ’em to take out the trash, but for him at [23] to get on the stage at the March to Washington, that’s a story they need to hear.”

Halpern: “How many other public murals are really must-sees to the point where people know, ‘I’m coming to Atlanta. I gotta make sure I see that’? It’s really a backdrop for a lot of continuing conversations about civil rights [and] human rights. I’ve seen quite a number of organizations  use that area right there… to give speeches, to do press conferences, to do photo shoots.”

Weyandt: “There were a lot of people who came together to make it happen. It did feel like an organic, grassroots thing that came about, and to see that become more of an institutional city park [or] landmark is kind of an amazing thing to witness. And like I said before, it really feels like it embodies the spirit of the congressman, a grassroots organizer who really brought people together. I hope it’s inspirational and it’s a gathering place.”