Following the unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain and countless other Black and Brown bodies due to police violence and brutality, national outrage has sparked uprisings in cities across the country. People from all walks of life have poured out of their homes in leadership and in allyship — during a global pandemic — to join liberation movements for Black lives. Correspondingly, street artists have taken to boarded-up panels and empty storefronts to do what they do best — make art.

In many of these cities, public art can be seen as an inspiring backdrop, or in some cases, the centerpiece for peoples’ rage. While Confederate statues are being torn down, righteous murals are being painted upon building facades and across several blocks of municipal streets declaring that Black Lives Matter, as seen in Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, Seattle, Detroit, Newark, New Jersey and beyond.

Speaking to this movement, our Brooklyn and Boston- based art agency, Street Theory, which I co-founded with art director Marka27, launched a public art campaign entitled Murals for the Movement. MFTM is a crowdfunding initiative designed to rebuild and reimagine communities by enhancing and amplifying opportunities for diverse, culturally-inspired and intersectional artwork by Black Artists and Artists of Color who are using large-scale public art to express a strong sense of civic and social justice engagement.