The mural by Susan Greene

Audio and technical
Isaac Ontiveros,
Deb Schneider & Sam Stoller

Web
Rob McBride & Deb Schneider

With Artists:
Meera Desai, John Fadeff,
Brooke Fancher, Jeremy Olson,
Eitan Saengar, Christine Schibly,
& Sarah Scott

Lettering
Maurice Carroll

Additional thanks to
Tom Anderson, Sama Abu Ayesh, Luis Palciaos,
Ricardo Ron, Carmen Luisa Ruiz, Ruben Texidor,
& Mural Resource Center

Funding
Anti Advertising Agency, Neighborhood Beautification Fund,
Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Zellerbach Family Fund,
& Individual Donors

La Lucha Continua

The Struggle Continues

Susan Greene and Freedom Archives have been working together on "La Lucha Continua/The Struggle Continues" for the past three years. Together, Greene and FA have consulted with local community organizing and activist groups, neighbors and business owners, to consider which people to add to the mural. Many factors were taken into consideration, including: who lives in the Mission, what connections are to be made globally, and which historical figures have been largely forgotten.

The collaboration between Greene and Freedom Archives was a natural one. Both parties are vitally concerned with the role history plays and with the ways in which histories can be revealed. During the now completed mural painting process Greene reports how people would stop and thank her, tears running down their faces to see familiar faces in the public space of the mural that they do not ever see otherwise in the urban landscape.

Parents regularly bring their children by the mural for a history lesson and to see and to hear the people who shaped their histories and who were important inspirations. For Greene, the development of La Lucha into the Talking Mural takes mural painting into the 21st century – and is a thrilling next step in the possibilities of bringing narratives across borders, both those that can be seen and not seen.

The collaboration between Greene and Freedom Archives provides the opportunity to engage people with history in a new way, turning communal spaces into peoples’ classrooms.