 It's wonderful to be here with you on such a beautiful day in Woodland Park. I'm not going to attempt to be the shade tree historian that I pretend to be everywhere else since we have a real historian like Dr. Donaldson here with us today. But he's heard me speak maybe dozens of times over the last almost decade that we've been leading with the Columbia SE 63 project, working to fully and accurately tell the stories of Columbia South Carolina, the amazing contributions particularly of African Americans to the story of Columbia and how it has shaped in many respects the direction and history of this country here in this city. I tell no story more often than I tell the story of Sarah Mae Fleming as I get out and about across this country because I believe that your mother, your grandmother, your aunt exemplifies the very best of us. The reality that sometimes seemingly ordinary people can lead in extraordinary ways and help change the course of history for each and every one of us. It's an inspiration that everyone needs to understand and appreciate, especially our young people. As they take on a changing and rapidly sometimes challenging world in which we live, we had the opportunity several of us to gather a few years ago. It seems like a lot longer than that, downtown at the corner of Washington and Main Street and to dedicate that thoroughfare in honor of Ms. Fleming. The opportunity to do this, to take on this effort as a council, working closely with our Columbia Parks Foundation and Columbia SE 63 and some incredibly talented artists and McWillsons, to again all across this city and all four corners of the city to tell the story, the way that it ought to be told and to memorialize it in a meaningful way is something that I believe is in the spirit of one Columbia, how we pull ourselves together. So thank you for all for being here. I'll have an opportunity to close the program. We're going to move through post-haze. And I want to thank our Councilman from District 4, Councilman Daniel Rickerman, who's going to follow me. He'll be followed by Henry Simons, our Assistant City Manager for Operations and then Dr. Bobby Donaldson, Associate Professor of History at USC and Lee Snowgrove, the Executive Director of One Columbia, the custodian of all of our public art, an amazing public art we've seen popping up all across this city. And then we'll have an opportunity to hear from our featured artists, Andrew and Sarah McWillson. So, Councilman? I would like to acknowledge that Councilwoman Divine is here for everybody who's our at-large member and has worked very closely with all of us on this project. I just want to take a minute to thank the family for being here today. What an incredible tribute to a historical figure that a lot of people didn't know the story about. And for an inspiration for young people, for a 20-year-old to make that feat and make that change that really affected a whole series of changes in our country to make this a better place. I'd like to opportunity to thank the artists, Andrew and Sarah, for what they've done, which is just, it really captured the essence of Ms. Fleming and the story that was captured in a picture that none of us really knew about. Thank you, Dr. Donaldson, for all your help and educating myself and others about the story and how important it was to the Civil Rights Movement. I also want to thank our staff, our city manager and those who helped us put this campaign together. As you know, all districts in our city will have a mural in it depicting different segments of the Civil Rights Movement that I think really encapsulates Columbia's dedication to not only telling the story but celebrating because we were a bigger part of the Civil Rights Movement than a lot of people know. I also would like to continue to push people to learn more about Ms. Fleming's story and all the stories that we continue to learn through the programs that we have set up, through the SC 63 and others because it proves that young people, one person, can make a dramatic difference. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilman. I recommend for your remarks. Of course, my name is Henry Simons and I'm the Assistant City Manager of Operations for the City of Columbia. I want to thank Mayor Benjamin for his vision. The City's project come to life. He started the conversation and, of course, it was endorsed by our entire Council, so thank you so much, Mayor Benjamin, for the forethought to make this happen in all districts. We're grateful that this has taken place today. I also want to thank our City Manager, Ms. Wilson, for her leadership and guidance regarding this project. And today is a very special day for me personally. This family is my family. And I have known them all my life. And I am grateful to be a part of the process. I can remember as a little boy, my father would oftentimes have to get our vehicle repaired. And we would always go to Mr. O'Dell Fleming. We know O'Dell Fleming was a master mechanic. And, of course, Mr. O'Dell Fleming was Mrs. Sarah May Fleming's brother. And we would have awesome conversations while he repaired our vehicle. My father had a really good relationship with him. And so I am connected to this family in many ways. And I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the Sarah May Fleming family. I just want you all to stand. If you are connected to this family in any form, whether that's a daughter or granddaughter or niece or nephew, please stand at this time to be recognized by the community. Thank you. Thank you so much for your presence here today. And for me, this project is very special. It brings African American education to the doorsteps of our communities. It gives, in particular, young adults an opportunity to be inspired as they recreate at our community and recreational facilities. Some young people may not have an interest in a museum, or they may not have an interest in an art gallery, but they'll spend time at some of our recreational facilities, which I, as a young man, spend a lot of time playing basketball in our local communities. So it gives our current generation an opportunity to understand the history of the civil rights movement and how this impacts us to this very day. So providing images and stories to people like Sarah May Fleming helps promote legacy and achievement. This project was facilitated and funded through the Parks and Recreation Foundation. We also partnered, as the mayor indicated earlier, with Dr. Bobby Donaldson, who is the director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research for the University of South Carolina, and has worked as a professor there for over 20 years. He also serves as the lead scholar for Columbia SC 63. Our story matters, which is a history initiative that chronicles the struggle for civil rights and social justice in Columbia. So of course we aligned our efforts with some amazing work that's already being done by Columbia 63. We also partnered with Lee Snelgrove, who is the executive director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture, and Lee is also a member of the Parks and Recreation Foundation, which is helping us, has helped us in that capacity. So we're very proud of what we have accomplished on today. Let me also take a moment to recognize our Parks and Rec Foundation board members, Chair Fred Monk, of course he's not here today, but any of our Parks and Recreation Board members that are here, I don't see any at the moment, but if you are here and I'm missing you, please stand to be acknowledged if I'm missing anyone. I want to thank them so much for their forethought and their support on this initiative as well. We want to thank our Parks and Rec Foundation leadership team led by Mr. Randy Davis, our director of Parks and Recreation, also our deputy director, Kenya Bryant. I see Carrie Rich in the crowd, Todd Martin, who was our project manager, and all the team, Ray and Fred, who oftentimes are behind the scenes, setting everything up. This thing does not move without them being in place, so thank you so much for you all's commitment. And finally, I would like to also thank the artists, Andrew and Sarah McWilson, who you will hear from a little bit later, for just a masterpiece, a masterpiece of, and just a representation of excellence. So I want to thank them so much for the work that they have accomplished. So let me bring up the true story in yourself and come and bring some remarks before you. Please help me welcome Dr. Bobby Donaldson. The title for this installation is entitled The Pursuit of Justice. And 81 years ago, a census taker travels to the Garnes Ferry School District number one, number 11, and he knocks on the home of a family and he meets a man whose name was Matt Fleming. And he takes notes of Mr. Fleming's age. At the time, he was 38. His wife was 31. Mr. Fleming was a laborer constructing highways during the Great Depression. It makes note of a two-year-old son whose name was Malachi. And then it makes note of a six-year-old girl whose name was Sarah. The census taker who took this report 81 years ago never anticipated that the six-year-old little girl would carve out from Garnes Ferry Road to the pages in United States history. When the Columbia 63 began, we worked in concert with cities around the South, including Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. When the initiative emerged in 2012 and 2013, we were of the mind with the mayor that this project will last one year. But the more we started discussing and digging, the more we realized there was much more to do, to teach, to educate, and to document the history of African-American civil rights in South Carolina. And as the mayor noted, one of the most distinctive components of the Columbia 63 project was in the summer of 2013, where many who are gathered here today gathered on the corner of Washington and Main Street for the unveiling of a street sign honoring Sarah May Fleming. On that corner is also a wayside sign describing her significance. So when the public art initiative emerged and this site was selected, a question emerged what could be placed on this wall to chronicle African-American history. During one of our exhibits, I met a gentleman who was a lawyer in Columbia who said, I know that lady, but I didn't know her story. He said Sarah May Fleming Brown worked for my family here in the Garner's Ferry Road community, not too far from this park. And so knowing that connection, knowing that not only did she travel up and down Garner's Ferry Road, that is precisely why this wall was selected to honor that six-year-old little girl who appeared in the 1940 census. As we worked with other Southern cities, there was an effort to create an exhibit that would travel from city to city, and they wanted to use photographs from Time and Life magazine as part of the exhibit. And they told the mayor and Sam Johnson who was working with us that Columbia could not be part of that exhibit because there were no photographs in those major magazines that featured Columbia. So upset about that, I went looking. And if you look in the May 1956 Life magazine and you turn to page 38, you will see a photograph of a young woman in that photograph identified as Sarah Brown standing in front of the Trenum Road bus. That photograph was then used and given to our artists to inspire this exhibit. In 1956, as Sarah May Fleming was fighting her way in the courts, challenging S, C, and G, she poses for a photograph with her attorney, Matthew J. Perry, and his co-attorney, Lincoln C. Jenkins. They're standing on the steps of the federal courthouse, the building now behind City Hall. A reporter looks at Ms. Fleming Brown and says, what are your thoughts about the litigation happening? She said, first of all, I'll never ride a city bus. Then she said, I hope what I did does not cause too much trouble. But what I did was the right thing to do. And that is the inspiration for the quote on the wall. A woman in 1954 who did the right thing. Most textbooks will never tell the story of Sarah May Fleming. 17 months after Sarah May Fleming sat down on that bus, another woman, Rosa Parks, sits down on the bus in Montgomery. Her attorneys use the case, Fleming versus S, C, and G, in their litigation. I suspect Sarah May Fleming Brown was on the mind of Martin Luther King Jr. when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954, 64. These are his words. Most of the people in this movement will never make the headline and their names will never appear in who's who. Yet, when the years roll by, children will be taught that the nation is a better place because of the nameless men and women who were willing to suffer for righteousness sake. So as young children enter this park, they will know the name Sarah May Fleming, that six-year-old girl on Garnesbury Road in 1940 who dared to believe in justice and who believed in doing the right thing. Today, we congratulate, salute, and honor this extraordinary legacy, Sarah May Fleming Brown. Thank you. Over the last, I think, seven years, I've had the pleasure to be a part of over 50 pieces of public art that have been created in the city through my role in Juan Colombia and now with the Parks Foundation. And each time, you know, I hear stories or we talk to the artists throughout the process, and that's one of my favorite aspects of doing public art, is how the mural itself is intended to tell a story. But there's also a story that goes along with the installation process and the reaction of the community is the artist is out working and the way the artists engage with the community and it tells a whole nother story as it goes up. And Andrew and Sarah lived in this community while they were here. They lived in that space right there in their van. They were here for a few weeks. They experienced the daily walkers, the people who come through this park. They experienced their reaction to it. They experienced the principal and the art teacher and the students that she sort of brought along with her virtually at the time, experiencing the mural. And I happened to be here when the art teacher came over and it was wonderful to hear the excitement in the voices of the students when they both saw the mural but then saw the artist standing right with it. And it tells a story about what's important to this community, what's important to the people involved. And that's always exciting and it's certainly exciting in this instance that we're able to put such an important mural in a community and not necessarily just downtown. It is where people will be. It is where people will see it. It was where people come to meet with their community. It is where students go to school or where they practice baseball. And they will experience that history and that story of that mural when they do that. So I'm thankful for opportunities like this and happy that Columbia continues to support public art and have public art happen in our communities and with our neighbors. I'm thankful obviously to the mayor and city council and the city manager for making this happen, especially Councilman Rickwin who worked directly with the community members in regards to this mural. Obviously it's been a pleasure to work with Dr. Donaldson and Mr. Simons throughout this process and I'm grateful to this staff, Ebony Kelly and Todd Martin who really usher this project through. And all the support staff at each of these mural projects has been tremendous. The city staff that just show up when you need a ladder and make sure that the artist has what they need when they work. And certainly thankful to Andrew and Sarah so I'll invite them up hand in hand creative so they can say a few words as well. We are very honored to be here and to be a part of this project. We only want to create works that have great meaning. We want to add to the human experience. Very often when we go places and we do a mural we have to muster up a meaning or delve deeper to find one, to unveil one or to find inspiration for something meaningful to paint. The process here was effortless in that respect because the story was here. The meaning was here. The support for Sarah May Fleming's story was here and the need was here. We just had to show up and paint it to bring life to that story on a wall. I'm so glad we got to be just a little bit part of that process. As for the paint and how it goes up it's just paint and it's on an inanimate wall that has no life to it. So we wanted to bring a life to it. We do that with our style and the way that we put the paint on the wall. We had such a wonderful photograph to work from and in addition to that most people didn't know that photograph which was really amazing. But the way the paint goes up we wanted it to have a movement an energy to it not to just be something still but to be something very much still alive. And in that way we thought that the meaning and everything that this story represents is something that is still very much alive. So in that respect we wanted the depiction of Sarah May Fleming to be with life to be something present and to be something very much a now conversation. We always include words and visuals together with the work that we do. This really allows people to have double entry points into the meaning of the piece and connect on a deeper level and we're very thankful to Dr. Donaldson to be able to provide us with words from Sarah May Fleming. It was really important for this not to be our voice but to be hers and to be heard here on this wall. And while this is very much Sarah May Fleming's story captured here we are hopeful that every viewer who walks by who sees it not only is inspired to learn more about Sarah May Fleming's story but to really inspect within themselves a connection to this story, a connection with doing the right thing, a connection with standing on the side of humanity and inclusion and equality and really asks themselves how they can be an active participant today in this very moment but that is our hope for this wall and we are very grateful to have been able to tell her story here. Thank you. I want to thank the McWillsons for sharing their gift with us. I've always been amazed by couples who can work together professionally. I'm not sure I could ever do that so cameras on, don't tell my wife I said that. We've been joined by Councilman Ed McDowell and the State Representative Wendy Barley and Art of the Paw Barley. Thank you all so much for gracing us with your presence to Fleming and Brown families just thank you. Thank you for sharing your mother, Matriarch with us for allowing us to tell the story. It is so important. Again, I believe we have several of our new mayor's fellows out here, these young leaders. We have all women and one man this summer. I'm not sure what that means about the future. My daughter said the future is female but I think this mural today tells an amazing story again of how when God said whom shall I send? Who will go for us? You've got to be willing to raise your hand and say here am I, send me. And Miss Fleming Brown did just that and it helped change the course of history doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time. So thank you. Thank you to the wonderful residents of this neighborhood who embraced this mural and I would encourage you to get around the city and see not only the wonderful art as part of this initiative that's beautiful and helping illuminate the city but taking all the public art that tells a story of exactly what we can be if we choose to be together. This is one city with sometimes a beautiful and challenging and difficult past but a very bright future if we so choose to make it. Thank you and God bless you for being here with us today. Love the family to come up and join us for the ribbon cutting.