When attorney Rusty Antel glances at the two murals located in the stairwell of the Boone County courthouse, it doesn’t make him fearful but he understands how they might scare others.
The paintings depict what appears to be unclothed black men in chains, a white man being whipped, a Native American being threatened with a gun by a white man, and a Native American who has been lynched, according to Antel.
“I'm a 67-year-old white guy who is privileged but public defenders have told us about how their clients are really bothered by it and not just African American clients but, in general, their clients really don’t like it,” Antel told the St. Louis Record.
The artwork was painted by Sidney Larson in 1994, according to media reports, and have been on display since 1995 but recently attorney Gary Oxenhandler and Antel decided to do something about it.
“People walk by it all the time and don't really see it and people don't see it from the perspective of others who don't have a voice to speak up,” Antel said. “This caught Gary’s attention about six or eight weeks ago but I think it's been on his mind for a while.”
When the two lawyers surveyed attorneys at the Boone County Bar Association and the Boone County judiciary, a majority expressed their desire to take it down.
“If you want to put it in a museum, whether that's a historical museum as a piece of history or an art museum as a piece of art, or if the county commission wants to put it in the county commission chambers in their office building, that's entirely their choice,” Antel said. “Nobody's suggesting burning it in front of the courthouse. It is art that’s worth preserving. It just doesn’t belong in the courthouse and that is really our central point with this is the location of it.”
Removing public art, however, isn’t easy.
“There's a process under federal law that you have to go through but we're pretty confident that we'd be okay on that,” Antel said. “It's kind of surprising that the commission, even though it's a county building, the artwork does fall directly under their control and not the court’s control. So, the court can't really do anything on its own.”
The judges reportedly voted by enough of a majority to send a letter asking the commission to remove the art and, as a result, the commission is holding a public hearing on Sept. 28. Two of three commissioners must vote in favor of removing the murals.
“To me, there's a clear right decision about this but if they want to give everybody a chance to be heard, you can't complain about that because it’s only fair," Antel added. "In terms of the process, it's probably going to get pretty contentious because it's all tied up with politics.