MIAMI (WSVN) – Officials gathered at Miami’s Dorsey Park to unveil a restored mural honoring two trailblazing baseball legends after it was vandalized with racist graffiti in June.
Members of the community gathered Wednesday near Northwest First Avenue and 17th Street for the unveiling of the restored mural following a painful act of vandalism in which the mural was defaced with a swastika and the N-word.
The mural honors Jackie Robinson, who was the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, and Minnie Miñoso, the league’s first Afro-Cuban player.
“Heroes, people that we look up to and admire, and so, those are the people that should be put up on a pedestal,” said City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
On June 2, a vandal spraypainted two swastikas, the F-word and the N-word over the faces of Robinson and Miñoso.
The hateful messages were discovered by Braden, a 7-year-old who didn’t know what that symbol meant at the time.
“I didn’t like that, because I want the world to be a better place, and I want people to love each other all,” said Braden.
Kyle Holbrook, an internationally renowned Miami-based muralist, initiated the Dorsey Park mural project in 2011 and envisioned it as a tribute to Overtown’s history, the Negro Leagues and the role of Miami as a crossroads of African-American and Afro-Cuban culture.
“The mural was supposed to be, it’s a sense of pride,” Holbrook said after the homage was sullied. “Dedicated mural to the Negro League teams that used to play there, the Ethiopian Clowns. There is a lot of other historical imagery on the mural.”
For the past two months, the mural had to be covered up until artists could remove the hateful messages.
With the symbols now erased, the community gathered to celebrate its resilience and forge stronger bonds.
“Love and light will always conquer darkness and hate, and that’s what we are. We are light and we are love,” said City of Miami Commissioner Christine King.
The mural’s restoration marks just the beginning. Community organizations are teaming up with the Miami Marlins on a new project to revitalize and restore all of the murals that have been created around Dorsey Park.
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