 So excited to be here with you all. I'm neglectful of the reference providence. Some of you think about the, if we planned this for yesterday, how, what kind of day we would have had in Columbia South Carolina, you get five, five seasons every week. You never know what you might get. This is a beautiful day that's befitting of the, of this amazing piece of art that's being officially unveiled. We're gonna be joined by several members of our city council. Mr. McDowell is on the agenda, have a councilwoman Tamika Izzy Devine, councilman Sam Davis, we have our city manager, Teresa Wilson, several of our city officials I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize Henry Simons who has been wonderful in shepherding this project in partnership with one Columbia and Lee Snelgros team, Dr. Donaldson, who's been nothing less than a guide and seer for this project as we've determined that we would use public art as an opportunity to not only elevate these amazingly gifted and talented individuals who live in our city but use it as an opportunity to edify the city, to tell the story of the African seed and the American son and how since before the very birth of this city that black folk have been helping build this city and it's not just about looking back, it's about looking forward. How indeed does this inform our future and help us build the most talented, educated, entrepreneurial and equitable city in America? The Columbia Parks and Foundation Mural Project is a collaborative effort integrating the tapestry of Columbia's African American history in each of our four different council districts exhibited as large-scale pieces of public art. These murals each use individual artistic styles to convey different significant moments or touchstones of culture from our city's African American legacy rendered into vivid expressions of courage, resilience, hope, progress and daily life. The different murals, if you've had an opportunity to drive around the city and see them in their own respective districts in Hyatt Park, in District One, we have the pursuit of citizenship, we have in District Three, the pursuit of education highlighted at Valencia Park showing the integration of Richland County schools in District Four, the story of the pursuit of justice edified with a portrait of Sarah Mae Fleming and her experience just here on the other side of this building serving as a forerunner for Rosa Parks back in the 1950s. Here today, we have a chance to lift up our gifted child, Asha Charles, who had a chance to talk to her parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles and everybody else here today. Go ahead and clap, Grandma, go ahead and clap. And I keep referencing how I would just marvel. I remember the first time I saw her work and I was amazed and it was a fairly sizable piece of work done in record time that just amazed me at the gift this young woman had. And as we watched her art go up and be highlighted and celebrated not just here regionally but nationally, being seen internationally, there was no doubt as to who we would call on to cover this piece of art that recognizes I believe in many respects, the American dream. The American dream for so many of us as we try, many try to divide us so often. Tell people that the reality is that everyone in this country just wants a fair shot. Just want an opportunity. Want an opportunity to work hard, be paid a fair wage and if you're downright hardworking and entrepreneurial, to be successful. The African American business community just to the west of here particularly but all throughout the city that existed pre-integration was an amazing place that I do know that Dr. Donaldson is gonna touch on at a much deeper level. But when we were talking about Aja potentially doing this, of course I've had enough conversations with her to know that she's gonna say yeah, she's gonna be ready to do it. But being able to see the speed in which she was able to conceptualize and then deliver working well into the night, I couldn't do this on a 12 by eight piece of paper let alone this massive canvas that many of us thought would be covered by several artists, not by one. She's an amazing gift and I wanna thank her, her parents and grandparents and family for sharing her with us. This is an exciting day, something we've been looking forward to because now say this as I take my seat and yield the microphone to the representative of district to Reverend Ed McDowell so often public art statues are used as ways to divide people and we have been very vocal about these symbols and each and every one of these symbols should be opportunities to tell a story, to tell our common story and pull people together to unify people by telling a story that's edifying and this council unanimously determined that we would tell that story, the important contribution of African-Americans all across the city, but we'd tell it in a way that was edifying and brought all people together. We have people in the city who hail from every one of the 194 sovereign nations of the world living right here in the city. The story of the African seed and the American sun is central to who we are and being able to tell it in this beautiful fashion is something we are uniquely proud of today so thank you all of you for not thinking of robbery to be here with us today. Thank you so much for being you. We're gonna continue to lift you up in prayer and we know that this, you haven't even begun the scratch surface of what God's gonna take you. Thank you so much. Reverend McDowell. Good afternoon. I think it is appropriate for us to say and I don't have much to say, the senator wants me to be short and of course I will abide by his wishes. There's only one word that I can say that sort of sums up this mural. Wow. Amazing. It is the amazing task of this artist. Ms. Charles, you've done us and made us proud of not only our past but our present. My wife reminded me this morning that a piece of your artwork is in our home. So every day I passed, I admired the picture. I never did look at the bottom to see the name. She reminded me this morning that we have one of her paintings in our home. Spectacular. Now, I must admit that as I passed this place and stopped as she completed this mural, my goodness, this represents and symbolizes the past but it also gives us a real pathway to our future. Ms. Charles, thank you very much for allowing us to sense and to feel the presence of the past and yet the ongoing pathway to the future. The next project, of course, well I think what I'd like to do is dedicate some place on my house. Aja, thank you very much for your talent, your creativity and I must say this as I take my seat. As I've strove through the parking lot. Several times I've seen splashes of paint on the bottom and of course I simply said, oh my goodness, someone has thrown paint on this mural. I immediately called the city manager and I said, Mr. Mayor, someone has defamed, defaced our mural. Henry rushed out there to look and he simply says, Ed, wait. You can tell how much artistic abilities I have. Henry said to me, Ed, that's Aja's trademark. So Aja, thank you for your trademark. Thank you for allowing us to remember our past and forge forth to the future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman McDowell, for your remarks. There's always a challenge speaking after a preacher because no one really hears what you have to say when it's your turn. So thank you so much, Councilman McDowell. Of course, my name is Henry Simons. I'm the Assistant City Manager of Operations, of course, for the City of Columbia and I wanna say a special thanks to our Mayor, Mayor Steve Benjamin, for his vision to see this project come to life. We are grateful to our entire Council for endorsing and supporting this public art initiative. Thank you so much to our city manager, Ms. Teresa Wilson for her continued guidance and direction as well as we facilitated through this project. This project was facilitated and funded through the Parks and Recreation Foundation. We also partnered 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 for over 20 years and you will hear him in just a moment. 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 here in Columbia. So we have aligned this project with some amazing work that's already been done through Columbia SC 63. We also partnered with Lee Snell Grove, who is the Executive Director of OneColumbia for Arts and Culture and Lee is also a member of the Parks and Recreation Foundation, which is helping us facilitate this project in that capacity. OneColumbia is actually the gatekeeper to help facilitate arts and culture throughout the city of Columbia. So we take pride in the work that has been accomplished with this initiative. I definitely want to recognize our Parks and Rec Foundation, Mr. Fred Monk, who is not here with us today. We also have some other members of the Parks and Recreation Foundation Board, Mr. Jennifer Clyburn-Reed that's with us today. Thank you so much for your support. And also Mr. Damon Jeter, who is also a Parks and Recreation Foundation Board member. We also want to thank the Parks and Recreation Department for all their leadership and guidance throughout this process. So thank you all so much for this opportunity. Now at this time, please help me welcome Dr. Bobby Donaldson to the podium. Good afternoon everyone. Columbia SC 63 is very honored and very pleased to join this important initiative this afternoon. In the mid-1950s, a white photographer named Eugene Sloane stood near the corner of Maine and Washington. He snapped the photograph of the 1119 Washington Street building. The negative of that photograph was placed in a box in an archive and it remained there for decades. Largely unknown and largely unseen. What Mr. Sloane did not realize was that in 1955, he was setting the stage for 2021. As this initiative emerged, we started looking in our archives for images that would chronicle the lives and experiences of African-Americans in the city of Columbia. And in that one photograph, it served as a reminder of the extraordinary men and women who helped to build and to support the 1100, the 1000, and the 900 blocks of Washington Street often known as the Black Downtown. So in the height of segregation, a family from Waverly or a family from Wheeler Hill, or Ward 1, or Arsenal Hill, or Greenview, or Harbison would come to town. They might start at the 900 block, a building still standing. They could go inside, they could see and patronize an African-American bank, the Victory Savings Bank. They walk a few blocks further. They could stop at the Blue Palace Tea Shop or the Dew Drop Inn or the Phoenix Cafe or Count's Drug Store. They could come a few blocks over to the Greenleaf Cafe or they could stop at the 1119 building. They could go upstairs. They could visit the office of someone who looked like them, a chief defender and champion of civil rights, the lawyer on the top, lawyer Harold Boulware, or they could come downstairs and go through the front doors of the Lilywood Barbershop or they could visit the Masonic Temple or they could stop by 1107, Main Washington Street. They could go upstairs to a hair salon called Elyse's Beauty Park. In so many ways, this mural helps to chronicle a missing, a deleted, a demolished chapter in our history. So it was an extraordinary moment for me to have a 24-year-old artist have a conversation with a woman who owned and operated Elyse's Beauty Parlor that she opened in 1938. Today, Elyse Jones Martin is 106 years old. And she walked Ms. Charles through the history of these men and women that she knew personally. And so now when we walk down Main Street in the Columbia SC 63 walking tour, very often we would point to what was on Washington Street. Now we stand in this plaza flanked by the world's hope and we show them what is, what has been recorded, what has been documented, what has been preserved and continuing these stories. Very often when we dedicate historical markers and wayside signs, I'm drawn to the history lesson in the Old Testament, that history lesson that says write the vision and make it plain on tablets. Well, today we modify that slightly, paint the vision on the wall. Why do you do it? So that those who walk by may be educated, may be edified, they may be inspired to run on to see where their ends will be. That scripture says sometimes you'll have to wait for that change to happen, but keep on waiting for the change will surely come. Ms. Charles, thank you for making that change come today. Bar's been set and I am not gonna meet that bar. It's always impossible to follow Dr. Donaldson when you have to speak. I am Lee Selgrun, the director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture. My organization has been supported by the city since 2012 and one of the projects we have taken on as an organization is commissioning works of public art on behalf of the city of Columbia. And I think this is one of many representations of the support that the city has given us in fulfilling that mission and bringing public art to be more prominent in our city. I have looked at this wall a long time, standing in line, getting coffee next door. I've walked this because our office is just down the street and it is so satisfying to see that it is finally painted with something so great that we'll continue to captivate many people and many visitors as they come to the city. I hope the city, I expect that the city will continue to support more public art projects. Public art really enhances our city aesthetically. It demonstrates the creative people that live and work here and demonstrates that to the people that are already here, our residents, but also the people that will come and visit us. And it really showcases what is important to us as a city and our culture as a city. And I think this one in particular really represents who we are as a city, tells our story of Colombians, of people who are entrepreneurs, people who are building things and making things and doing things and being part of a community. This mural represents that. So I wanna thank everyone that, public art is a process. It involves a tremendous number of people to accomplish it. It does not come, the artist does all the work, but before that so much work is done to set the stage for that artist to be able to represent themselves and what they're trying to tell the story of. So I wanna thank the mayor and council, obviously for their support and their encouragement and their development of this initiative. Dr. Donaldson for all his advice and finding the right images and telling the stories that we wanted to tell. Mr. Simons for ushering everything through and Ebony Kelly and Todd Martin who have been the staff members that have really worked to coordinate artists and resources, making sure there was a lift on site when necessary and things like that. And certainly especially Aija herself, the artist who when I called her and talked to her about being selective of this project I said, you know, will you have assistance? And she said, no, I'm doing it myself. And I said, are you sure? And she did it. She did every bit of this mural herself and is a spectacular artist that we hope to see represent Columbia for many years. So I'll welcome Aija up so she can say a few words herself. Hello everyone. It's very, I just wanna say thank you all for coming out. It has truly been an honor and a blessing to even been given the opportunity to do something like this. I've always been taught in my life that sky's the limit to what you can do. There should be no limits to what you can achieve in this world and to be able to put together such an amazing project with one Columbia in the city and bring something that was historically here back to our city. It just has been an honor and a privilege. And I just wanna thank you all again for the opportunity for doing this. When I first got this, I don't think Lee knew but my proposal was actually doing my birthday. So I knew it was predestined for me to do this project. And I know they were freaking out when I said that I wanted to do this on my own but I knew I could. I'm known as the fast artist and for this to be something that used to be buried in history, bringing history back to life. I just wanted us as a residence and the spirit of all those that existed during that time to be all brought back into one. And as you see, it's come out perfect. And I just thank you all again. I thank the city for giving me the opportunity. I thank one Columbia for putting it together for me and I thanks to you to Benjamin for reaching out to me so far in advance, months in advance, let me know that this is coming. And I'm looking forward to continue to paint the town, bringing positive vibes on the canvas of our lives. Usually he has traveling music, but he didn't have any music. The one and the only Senator Kay Patterson is gonna join us for a second and have a word. I thought you all had forgotten about it over me. Picked up my September 2nd Sunday state newspaper. All the news that fit to print. It's like New York Times. And I read this article. I was like, who did all this? And I kept on reading and I found out who did it. So I went down to the mouse house and did a little something, something fall. And today we are honoring her and it reminds me of a piece of scripture that says that we do not care for ourselves as we should. And that a person is not without honor, except in his own country, among his own kin, and in his own house. Today we are honoring Ms. Charles because she did a good job in capturing the history of us here in South Carolina. So I would like to present, and now someone that took it from me, ask Ms. Charles to come over here. Mouse House did it and I paid for it with someone they get out to vote money. Thank you, Senator Patterson. Senator Patterson, no one can ever forget you, my friend. And we're thankful for what you meant to so many of us for so, so long. I did neglect to mention one thing earlier. Some of you may know that the city recently purchased this building. So this is a city-owned building. And so often I think we neglect to fully appreciate the importance of the public realm, the place where people come together and join together and share together. This is that space. And again, we hope and pray that Asha's work here, but all the work being done throughout the city continues to bring us together as one Columbia, as one great city. Thank y'all, God bless you and keep you in Asha. We're waiting to see more of my sister. All right, God thank you. Oh, we gotta cut the ribbon, y'all. I'm sorry.