As one “Black Lives Matter” mural is being painted, another has once again been put on hold.

While painting of the CommunityWorx Black Lives Matter mural began earlier this week, the discussion surrounding painting another mural on Carrboro’s Town Hall carries on.

While initially pushing to paint “End Racism Now” in the Town Commons parking lot, after months of deliberation, the town council passed a resolution to move the mural to the Town Hall parking and change the language to “Carrboro Facing Race Embracing Equity.”

Later, in a push for better visibility, the Carrboro Town Council adopted another resolution that approved the mural to be painted on Town Hall itself.

At their meeting on Tuesday, Carrboro’s town council continued working through the placement, lettering and color plans for the mural on Town Hall.

Current designs show the Carrboro “feel free” logo in black lettering, with the words “Facing Race Embracing Equity” in different colored brown skin tones – all over a white background.

Rendering of potential Black Lives Matter Mural on Town Hall, Annex and stair tower east view. (Photo via Town of Carrboro)

Carrboro Mayor Lydia Lavelle said the Carrboro logo will be black to emphasize the town’s work with GARE, or The Government Alliance on Race and Equity. Lavelle said the town often uses different colors for their logo to emphasize different topics.

“It’s like when we had Pride events and the Carrboro [logo] got shot off to look like Pride colors or when we had Parks and Recreation events the Carrboro logo shot off to have a Parks and Recreation look,” Lavelle said. “The only time I’ve seen this [black] one used was its genesis with the GARE program.”

While town council member Barbara Foushee approved of the design for the Town Hall mural, she suggested that they needed to take a deeper look into how making the Carrboro logo black fits in with the overall mission of the mural.

“We literally have a mural with this,” Foushee said. “Why are we doing that? What is the purpose of that? What is the value of it? What is the value of the location? How does all that fit together instead of just doing it? What does it mean as far as our work going forward both as a town and as a council?”

Foushee said more thought needed to be put into streamlining the black Carrboro logo with the rest of the town’s operations, imaging and overall mission to be inclusive and supportive.

“If we’re embracing this racial equity and diversity and inclusion and everything in between, I’m not clear why it [the black logo] couldn’t be used on a town document or an email signature,” Foushee said.

Town council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell said that while the design and placement of the mural still needs work, there are bigger questions that need to be addressed first.

“Barbara raises a question that’s separate from actually putting a mural on the wall – which is ‘what is this about for us,’” Haven-O’Donnell said. “I think if we could have the town have this on our email signatures with a disclaimer ahead of it – that’s a start. Lydia, I agree that we’ve used our logo for everything and we want to continue to be able to do that – but I think this makes a very important statement that’s separate from that.”

At their meeting on December 1, the Carrboro Town Council chose to table this discussion on mural design until January, after their winter break. During that time, Foushee and council member Damon Seils will work on drafting a presentation on how the black Carrboro logo will fit in with the rest of town operations.

For more information on what was discussed at Carrboro’s latest town council meeting, click here.

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