New Haven Independent

“This is better than being in three halls of fame,” said Bruce “Soup” Campbell (at left in photo, with boxer Chad Dawson at right), the stand-out 1970s Wilbur Cross star and later professional basketball player.

Of his own smiling image, John Daniels, the city’s first black mayor, exclaimed, “I have a school and a street [named after me], and now I’m on a mural in the neighborhood I grew up in. This is a tremendous honor. I’m glad I’m alive to see it!”

Claxton (in top photo), Campbell and Daniels were among the Dixwell heroes who showed up in flesh to celebrate the unveiling Friday of a new mural that preserves their places in history.

Such evocations of quiet wonder at being part of a living history accompanied the unveiling of “READ,” the splendid mural on black history of the Dixwell neighborhood. It features pictures of some standout Dixwell community members from throughout history, up until today.

The public art work, permanently affixed to the facade of the Stetson Branch library on Dixwell Avenue, debuted Friday afternoon in a moving ceremony attended by 200 Dixwellians from across the generations.

Muralist Katro Storm worked from current and archival photos, as well as suggestions of area residents who dropped in to reminisce during the work-in-progress. He settled on 28 multi-generational images, portraits of people alternating with architectural evocations of iconic area stores and institutions.

In an abecedarian style that evokes reading primers, he’s tucked seven or eight images within each letter of “READ.”

Click here and here for previous stories on how branch librarian Diane Brown and area artist Storm ran with the initial idea of Mindy Lu, a Yale art student, and within six months, brought the project to festive fruition.

“This is a labor of love,” said Brown. It’s only the beginning, she added, of using graphic documentation and oral history of local heroes in the library’s programming.

Head city Librarian James Welbourne (pictured with Brown) said called the 40 foot long, ten-foot high mural “a first” for New Haven’s system because it “incorporat[es] a neighborhood’s cultural history in a piece of art.”

It’s the beginning, he added, of a conversation between the library and the neighborhood. “Art invites discussion to clarify the story even in ways the best memory does not,” he said.

In addition to athletes like Campbell (on the left above), the mural includes depictions of Chad Dawson, a Hillhouse educated reigning WBC light heavyweight boxer (pictured with him), and mixed martial arts champ Reggie Higgins (pictured in the red tie), area politicians, entrepreneurs, civil servants, educators such as Charles Twyman, the city’s first black school principal, and humanitarians. In some cases their relatives or descendants attended and spoke movingly at the event.

The muralist (on the right) was assisted in creating the blue/purple background as well as some of the images by crews from the Wexler Grant School and Hillhouse High. Daily volunteer assistantship came from Marquis Waters (at left), who just graduated from Hillhouse.

Under “D,” for example (behind Storm and Waters), looms the face of New Haven’s first black city treasurer, Ella Scantlebury. Below her images of the Q House as well as the Goffe Street School, built for African American children in 1864, fill out the base of the letter.

The Hannah Gray Home and the Black Panther headquarters on Dixwell float happily together in art across the centuries.

The criterion for inclusion, according to Brown, was that the figures were either born and raised or had significant impact on Dixwell. So what is Barack Obama doing in the mural, to State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield’s left?

“He’s not from Dixwell but he’s one of us,” Brown said, “and the kids told Katro they wanted him.”

The only other non-native Dixwellian in the mural is Michael Jackson, a late addition, and also called for by the many kids who dropped by during the painting process.

As he worked on the project, Storm said, the mural took on a life of its own. “People came in and prayed,” said Storm. “People noticed it from their cars on the street and came over.”

Which is precisely the point.

For Storm one of the most moving interchanges was with Tracy Claxton, the 1985 All- American forward with Old Dominion, who was that year’s NCAA championship’s most valuable player.

“I was speechless,” she said, when she saw her image coming to life above that of the great New Haven-raised New York Nets three-point shooter John Williamson.

Claxton grew up on Ashmun Street. As a kid and now, as she drives the neighborhood, she notices the cameo portraits of famous black Americans on the walls of the old Martin Luther King Intermediate School on upper Dixwell. But an image of herself with John Williamson (with whom Soup Campbell played for a year)? “Imagine this to come to pass,” Claxton said; then she was at a loss for words.

Halfway through the process, the library’s room where Storm was working had to be vacated for the hundreds of kids the library serves in its summer programs.

No problem. The landlord of the space next door gave it to Storm to finish the murals.

Barbara Lamb, the head of the city’s cultural affairs department, said, “I hope it’ll be the first of several murals in Dixwell.” She echoed what others with deep knowledge of the area said: there were many other people and places that couldn’t be fit onto the mural.

In the meantime Soup Campbell lingered in front of the mural and recalled the Elm Haven projects across from the library, where he grew up. Yes, he said, “they were rundown, but you could leave your door open and sleep in the backyard.”

“That is the meaning of home, when you’re not scared,” he said, “and it’s a place you want to come to. It’s the greatest feeling you can have.”

Which is why, said Campbell, who still lives nearby, he’s going to send his son up on his bicycle to look at the mural everyday.

A host of supporters made the project possible, including the city’s cultural affairs department, Yale University, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Pfizer, Home Depot, and local businesses that contributed sandwiches, paint, and other materials.

Click on the play arrow to watch Tom Ficklin’s video highlights of Friday’s event. Click here to see his photos.