An attorney’s group in Florida has called for the removal of a courthouse mural in Baker County that depicts three KKK riders on horseback, becoming the latest piece of art in a public space to be scrutinized under the lens of racial justice.
The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers this week drafted a letter to the chief judge of the circuit that includes Gainesville, asking that a mural in nearby Baker County, reportedly installed in 2001, be removed out of concern that Blacks who enter the courthouse, as attorneys or litigants, would see the symbol of murder and hate and question whether they could receive justice in those halls.
“We want to remove it from a place that needs to be promoting justice, not the antithesis of justice,” said Mitch Stone, the newly installed president of the lawyer’s group, who launched the effort by asking members what matters of justice they felt needed to be addressed, adding that having “an artist’s rendering glorifying the Ku Klux Klan would be suggestive that the fix is in.”
The mural, which includes three Ku Klux Klan riders in white robes and hoods on horseback, was painted with the intention of illustrating significant events in the history of the small, rural county north of Jacksonville, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Stone said Tuesday he had not yet received an official response to the request but hoped “reasonable minds [would] come to a reasonable solution” about the artwork, which was pained by Eugene Barber, a founding member of the county’s historical society, who also wrote an accompanying historical guide to the mural, according to the Florida Times Union.
