On the afternoon of Saturday, May 30, peaceful protesters met in Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids and marched in silence to protest the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Their message of outrage was clear. As night fell, a different crowd took to the streets and the evening turned violent as rioters smashed the windows of downtown businesses, burned police cars and caused other mayhem.
The following morning, volunteers from the community came downtown and cleaned up the mess leaving, behind boarded up businesses. Most of the business remain covered in plywood. But, the plywood has become a canvas for artists to send a message to the community about racism, redemption, and Black Lives Matter.
Someday soon, the plywood will come down, replaced by glass. The artwork will be auctioned off. While it is wonderful that the artwork will be preserved, it may lose some of its impact when it no longer appears together. So today I walked around downtown today to capture these photos. (Click on an image to see it larger.)
