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 Returning from my sunset walk yesterday evening – with clear blue skies, pink puff clouds, and golden light making the world so effortless and peaceful – I stop at my garage doors. At dusk the mural speaks softly, yet strongly. My eyes fall onto the panel with Freddie Gray’s entry.

Do any of you remember? For more than twelve years, I have been attentive to the high number of killings by police. Starting in 2011, I followed with my film project Finding the Gold Within GoldTheFilm.com six young Black men from Akron, Ohio, through their four years of college, as well the extra-ordinary mentoring program Alchemy, Inc. they had been part of throughout their teens (more about that later). The six protagonists of my documentary and I became very close over the years – and we still are up to this day. So of course, I felt extremely upset about the murders by police, deeply saddened, and worried about the well being of all the Black people around me. But I also knew that these things had been going on for a long time, and that they are a part of America’s history with slavery and racism.

Freddie Gray and his family have been in my heart since his cruel murder, and especially while I was painting his name last year. In 2015 big protests erupted in Baltimore and elsewhere. His family got compensation from the City of Baltimore, which did not bring him back. All of the involved police officers were found NOT guilty, or their charges were dropped.

The golden light and the relentless police killings – all exist together.

And must not be forgotten….

Freddie Carlos Gray Jr.

Aug 16, 1989 – April 19, 2015, 26 year old Twin, Baltimore, Maryland

REST IN PEACE.   YOU ARE LOVED.   REST IN POWER.

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