Anderson@Large

Music and Social Justice

From Washington, DC to Seattle, Washington, the streets are filled with thousands of protesters demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and all victims of police brutality.

Music has long fueled movements for social justice. In 1936, Lead Belly denounced racial segregation.

Civil rights activists vowed they weren’t going to let nobody turn them around.

In 1964, Sam Cooke said “a change is gonna come.”

James Brown implored everybody to get involved.

In 1975, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes told us to wake up; no more sleeping in bed.

In the wake of the lynching of George Floyd, “the world has changed so very much from what it used to be.” Spotify’s Black Lives Matter playlist has nearly 850,000 likes.

Frank Rizzo (1999-2020)

Former mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo was sued by the Justice Department for a pattern of police brutality that shocks the conscience. Rizzo died on July 16, 1991. He was born again eight years later in the form of a 10-foot monument commissioned by Rizzo family and friends.

The Frank L. Rizzo Memorial Committee decided to place the statue in front of the Municipal Services Building. They also decided it would be unveiled on New Year’s Day 1999 after the Mummers Parade, an event best known for clowns prancing around in blackface.

Almost from the moment the hunk-of-junk was unveiled, African Americans and allies peacefully protested for its removal from the gateway to municipal services. Fast forward to 2017, Mayor Jim Kenney said it would be removed by May 2018. Then he said by 2021. Then Kenney said the statue would not be moved before 2022. On May 30, 2020, demonstrators tried to topple it.

Realizing the jig is up, Kenney said the statue would be removed:

The way its engineered, it’s bolted into the stairs and under the stairs is the concourse where people get their permits and pay their taxes. We didn’t want to tear that up until we did the entire place. We’re going to move it, hopefully in about another month or so. We’re going to accelerate the removal.

The protests accelerated the removal. Rizzo was hauled out three days later. As for the concourse under the stairs, who are we to believe – Kenney or our lying eyes?

Kenney’s lie was compounded by his spokesperson Michael Dunn:

The statue is bolted into the infrastructure of the plaza, which is also the roof of the underground concourse. Removing it while ensuring the integrity of that infrastructure will be a complicated task.

It was such a complicated task the statue was removed under the cover of darkness.

For more on the take down of Frank Rizzo, check out my essay, “The Rizzo reign is finally over. Thank Black Philadelphia.”

In my op-ed, “3 Black Philadelphians whose statues should replace Frank Rizzo” published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, I suggested a memorial to Philly native Billie Holiday, who was harassed by then-Police Captain Rizzo, would be poetic justice. In 1939, Lady Day told the world black lives matter.

Pennsylvania National Action Network Calls on Sen. Warren to Support Removal of Frank Rizzo Monument

When I moved to Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo, a former mayor and police commissioner, had been dead for nearly two decades. Still, Philadelphians spoke about him with a passion and anger that was visceral. Rizzo’s legacy includes the untreated trauma that he inflicted on the African American community.

As I researched Philadelphia’s jazz history, I heard stories about how Rizzo harassed jazz musicians and club owners. So it is shocking that a monument of a man who was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for a pattern of police brutality that “shocks the conscience” is at the gateway to municipal services.

I looked at the story behind the story and learned the Rizzo monument was financed by his family. The public was never asked whether the vanity project was an appropriate monument for the City of Philadelphia. Not only was the public not asked, the vanity project was unveiled on January 1, 1999 after the Mummers Parade, an event that for decades featured marchers in blackface.

On the day Mayor Jim Kenney announced his endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic presidential nomination, it was reported Kenney has no plan to remove the Rizzo monument from Thomas Paine Plaza. Warren supports removal of Confederate monuments and the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag.

I join Pennsylvania State Chapter National Action Network in calling on Warren to support removal of the monument of Frank Rizzo, a racist cop who trampled on civil rights, urged supporters to “vote white” and traumatized the African American community. You can read the press release here.

Up Against a Brick Wall

Last week, Mural Arts Philadelphia unveiled Portraits of Justice, a public art project to engage ordinary citizens in conversations about transforming the criminal justice system.

Jeffrey Krimes and Russell Craig’s powerful murals overlook the statue of Frank Rizzo, a former police commissioner who had close ties with Italian mobsters and hung out at Black Mafia-owned joints on “The Strip” in West Philly. As mayor, Rizzo was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for a pattern of police brutality that “shocks the conscience.”

The murals’ bricks represent barriers to reentry. With their close proximity to Rizzo, the background brings to mind the former police commissioner gloating that his officers ordered Black Panthers up against a brick wall and forced them to strip naked in front of the news cameras. The August 31, 1970 incident is one of the many reasons Rizzo is loathed by African Americans.

The murals are designed to empower the public to reimagine a criminal justice system that is more than “just us.” To my surprise, they helped me reimagine a Thomas Paine Plaza without the Rizzo statue. The sheer size of the murals and the facial expressions are a silent rebuke to the monument to racial injustice. Tellingly, the family-commissioned hunk of junk has to be caged to protect it from the public.

Charlottesville: One Year Later

In the year since the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, there has been a growing awareness that public art is about public memory. It matters whose story is told in public spaces. From Maryland to Texas, Confederate monuments have been taken down. It took Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh three days to send the Confederate monuments in “Charm City” packing.

Conversations about public memory and symbols of hate were also held “Up South.” The Pittsburgh Art Commission voted to remove the monument to Stephen Foster, the “Father of American Music,” who is memorialized with a barefoot slave seated at his feet.

A task force appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the removal of the statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who operated on enslaved African American women to develop advances in gynecological surgery.

In Philadelphia, calls grew louder for Mayor Jim Kenney to remove the monument memorializing Frank Rizzo, a former mayor. As police commissioner, Rizzo presided over a police department whose practice of beatings “shocks the conscience.” That was the finding of the U.S. Justice Department which, in 1979, filed an unprecedented civil lawsuit against the city over its abusive policing tactics.

On the eve of the first anniversary of Charlottesville, Kenney did an about-face and said the Rizzo monument would stay at the gateway to municipal services for at least two to three years. The Mayor claims he is concerned about “incurring additional costs” of $200,000 $100,000. Truth be told, the police department will likely spend at least $100,000 quarterly protecting a monument to police brutality, racial bigotry and misogyny.

But get this: Kenney presides over a city government that spent $5 million on a computer system and has nothing to show for it. Also, City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart recently reported the city cannot account for a whopping $33 million in taxpayers’ money.

The Philadelphia Inquirer called out Kenney on his flip-flop:

Mayor Kenney has taken pains to publicly underscore the value of our city as welcoming and diverse. That’s a message undercut by the delay in moving the controversial statue that for some stands for oppression. That it was confirmed so near the anniversary of Charlottesville is sadly tone-deaf — especially at a time when better listening is critical.

Meanwhile, Frank Rizzo Jr. said that if his father’s statue is removed, “there’s going to be a fight.” Listen up, Junior: It's on.

Monumental Matters in Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the “City of Firsts.” In 1959, the city launched the nation’s first Percent for Art program which requires some developers to “dedicate at least one percent of the total building construction costs toward the commissioning of original, site-specific works of art.” In the ensuing years, the city has commissioned hundreds of works of art, including the Philadelphia Courthouse Mural.

Contrary to popular belief, the city did not commission the Frank Rizzo monument. The monument was commissioned by the Frank L. Rizzo Memorial Committee which was led by Frank Rizzo, Jr. So the public was never given an opportunity to weigh in on whether his father deserved to be honored in a public space.

Indeed, many have drawn comparisons between Rizzo and Donald Trump (here and here).

In the run-up to the 2016 election, the New York Times reported:

A former police officer who was nicknamed Big Bambino, Mr. Rizzo rose to power during the city’s crime-ridden 1960s and ’70s, cracking down on lawlessness with a legendary bellicosity.

After becoming police commissioner, he rounded up homosexuals late at night, forced the Black Panthers to strip down in the streets and once appeared with a nightstick stuffed in the cummerbund of his tuxedo. As mayor, he threatened to “break the heads” of criminals and boasted that his Police Department was strong enough to invade Cuba.

Timothy J. Lombardo, author of the forthcoming The Rise of Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and the Politics of the Urban Crisis, observed:

The difference between Rizzo and Trump is that Rizzo was the real deal. Rizzo has the authenticity, but Trump is really good at playing that role.

Given the parallels, New York City art dealer John Post Lee and I decided to introduce the pop-up Trump Rat statue to the pay-to-play Rizzo monument.

Lee said:

The idea that anyone in my native Philly ever thought that there should be a statue of Frank Rizzo, Philadelphia’s mayor from 1972 to 1980, is astonishing. He was, and remains, a human stain. If there is a statue of Rizzo, then we might as well have a statue of the inflamed Eagle fans who pelted Santa Claus with snowballs at Veterans Stadium.

It’s high time that Philly’s biggest rat came face-to-face with the rat who now threatens the very norms and decency of American civic life. The inflatable Trump Rat began as a mischievous art project but has evolved into an enduring sign of resistance, helping to lead protests against Trump’s policies.

The conversation between the pop-up and pay-to-play public art underscored the absurdity of Rizzo’s presence at the gateway to city services.

Public art should not be about nostalgists romanticizing a public figure. Public art is about public memory. The thin slice of supporters in South Philly notwithstanding, the collective memory of Frank Rizzo is that of a divisive politician who reigned over a city in decline. Rizzo left a legacy of police brutality, racism, sexism, homophobia and attacks on free speech. Rizzo’s legacy begs the question: Why is the monument still there?

Public Art: ‘Dirty Rat’ Frank Rizzo Meets ‘Trump Rat’

Almost from the moment the Frank Rizzo statue was unveiled, there were calls to remove the monument to police brutality from the steps of the Municipal Services Building. Unsurprisingly, there was no pretense the statue was for all Philadelphians. It was unveiled after the Mummers Parade which had a fetish for prancing down Broad Street in blackface.

The Philadelphia Art Commission is mulling over whether the statue should be removed, relocated, or as many suggested, tossed in the Schuylkill or Delaware River. The 1977 book, “The Sayings of Chairman Frank, or I Never Saw My Mother Naked,” should be required reading for the commissioners. A collection of quotes and cartoons exposing then-mayor Rizzo, the book was published by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action.

The book was brought to my attention by Philly native John Post Lee who, along with his wife Karin Bravin, commissioned the “Trump Rat.”

I came across the 15-foot work of art as I was making my way to the High Line. John shared some memories and said he has a copy of the Rizzo compilation. We both agreed it would be awesome for the Trump Rat to meet the Dirty Rat who somehow paid $410,000 to remodel his home on a salary of $40,000.

President Trump and Rizzo have a lot in common. Trump was elected by white voters. As the New York Times reported, Rizzo told his supporters to “Vote White.”

In remarks before the law enforcement officials, Trump encouraged police brutality:

When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon -- you just see them thrown in, rough -- I said, please don’t be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, don’t hit their head and they've just killed somebody – don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?

Rizzo, also known as the Big Bambino and Cisco Kid, presided over a police department whose practice of beatings “shocks the conscience.” Black Lives Matter didn’t say that. That was the finding of the U.S. Justice Department.

The Rizzo compilation includes his remarks during a trip to Rome:

The way to treat criminals is “spacco il capo” [break their heads]. If you [the Rome Police] need some help, we’ll transport some guys over here and they’ll straighten them out right away.

John and I are working on the logistics on when and where to hook up the two divisive rats. Stay tuned.