Standing 30 feet in the air, supported by hydraulic boom lifts, Reginald Adams looked down and noticed a crowd forming underneath him, taking pictures.
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the spring of 2021 as Adams and his team of five artists painted a 5,000-square-foot mural on the outside of the Old Galveston Square Building, commemorating the birthplace of Juneteenth. In that same spot 156 years before, Union army troops issued an order demanding “absolute equality,” freeing the last 250,000 enslaved Black Americans in Texas.
As Adams, one of Houston’s most renowned artists, took in the scene from the lift, he felt an overwhelming sense of pride — and had an epiphany.
