This month, a small group of volunteers reinstalled a mural honoring the 50th anniversary of the Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party. The mural was originally created by the Franklin High School Art of Resistance & Resilience club and was officially hung on the fence outside Franklin High School in November 2018.
The mural was removed for repair and refurbishing in October 2025 after several panels were vandalized. Lauren Holloway, founder and co-advisor for Art of Resistance & Resilience, organized current and former Franklin students, community members, and staff from nonprofits to help repair the mural. They also added another mural on the wall below the fence.
Teaching artists Nathan "Sire One" Hivick and Jarman Hauser supported the student artists. Hivick also provided the students with a space to work and learn the art of graffiti at the Lander Project. The Art of Resistance & Resilience received a small grant from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and the club sold posters of the original mural at Estelitas Library, Arte Noir, Seattle Black Panther Party Park, and the Seattle Black Panther Party Interpretive Center to generate more funds. Seattle Public Schools provided painting supplies, and volunteers from Artstation Mt. Baker also pitched in.
Holloway said that during the height of the pandemic, she thought it would be nice to put another mural below the existing one. Since that new space was short and long, it seemed the perfect canvas for a quote.
She invited the community to offer suggestions, and after receiving almost 70, they chose a quote by Black Panther Party member Ericka Huggins: "We can together change the world. We are all threaded together like a huge tapestry of humanity and we forget we are interconnected."
Holloway said, "The message here is we got to come together and recognize and remember that we're all part of this human family, and that's the only way change is going to happen. So everybody brought their identities, their life experiences, their stories to this mural. … It's a tapestry of what's going on in their hearts and minds."
The repaired mural is now on display.
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