- [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] Honestly, it's hard for me to even say who Frank Rizzo was.

(soft piano music) - [Woman] Former mayor of Philadelphia, former police commissioner of Philadelphia, all the rest is opinion.

(bright upbeat music) - [Woman 1] He loved Italians, but he didn't love everyone else.

(laughs) (bright upbeat music) - [Man] Definitely he wasn't a friend to the black community even though, he got along with some people but overall he was pretty much the super villain of the city.

(upbeat music) - [Man 1] He's a figure known, for so-called law and order.

(bright upbeat music) - [Man 2] Rizzo stood for hate in so many ways.

So the question becomes who put this up and why?

(upbeat music) (birds chirping) (air whooshing) - [Narrator] The towering figure of the late Frank Rizzo is removed from his spot on the steps of the Municipal Services Building in Center City, Philadelphia.

Unveiled in early 1999, the statue was a gift to the city paper by Rizzo's family and friends.

But for years it has been a target of vandalism.

The former police commissioner and two-term mayor, seen as a controversial figure in Philadelphia.

- [Host] That Frank Rizzo mural was here for nearly 25 years and you take a look at what's left of it, here behind me in just a matter of hours it was painted over.

- [Anchor] Very shortly, the party faithful will begin gathering in this room to await the results of the election returns.

They are anxious to find out whether or not the man who has earned a national reputation as a tough cop, can garner enough votes to become the next mayor, of Philadelphia.

- And let me tell you something, so you'll understand, I will never concede to him, okay.

(soft piano music) - [Vernon] The public got its first glimpse of the Frank Rizzo statue as it was unveiled on the back of a flatbed truck, the statue was recovered with protective tarps, and a crane lifted it into place.

A delicate test of nerves.

The man who created the statue watched anxiously from the sidelines.

- Well, I'm nervous too.

I want it to be accepted by the public at large.

I want them to like it of course and to feel good about it.

- [Vernon] It was a challenge to capture the combination of Rizzo's commanding presence, and his common touch.

- That's very difficult.

That's not easy and I hope I've captured it, 'cause he was so dynamic and he had so much personality and strength of character.

(soft piano music) I like doing public sculpture.

It's like playing to the public being on a stage in a sense, part of that is because I've always had an interest in social justice, and I wanted to do sculpture that would be progressive.

I wanna leave the world, I know it's a cliche, I want to leave it better than I found it.

Initially when Helen and Jim called me, and she said, "I think the sculpture should come down, these Southern generals are coming down."

I said, "Well, I can understand how you feel because certainly I've also evolved over the years, and I had regrets about creating the sculpture."

In some sense, I thought it was a handsome sculpture.

I think you could recontextualize something.

I have a sculpture here that I have context.

All of us have context, and that's why I often don't like to do sculptures by themselves.

I try to talk clients out of it, because we're not isolated.

There's a gestalt, there's a background.

We can't be plucked out of our time, like Rizzo 25 years ago, who knows who he would be today?

Maybe he would be more Biden than Trump.

I don't know, people change.

(soft piano music) - Ironically, the Rizzo sculpture will share the MSB Plaza with this sculpture.

It's called Government of the People, it was installed during the bicentennial when Rizzo was mayor.

When he first saw it, he described it as a pile of excrement.

(bright upbeat music) - You drive along the streets of Philadelphia or really any city in America, and we see monuments.

(woman speaking foreign language) Sometimes we get the impulse to stop, and say who is this person?

The text on that monument, is what a lot of us end up knowing about those people for the rest of our lives.

The presence of the monument itself, reflects importance and significance when it comes to contributions to the city, contributions to the state and contributions to the nation.

(upbeat music) - Public art is important to have.

It is a snapshot of who we are, as a society at any given time.

And it's really important to Philadelphia because, we have the oldest and largest public art collection in the country.

And it's important to who we are in terms of our identity.

(bright upbeat music) - We all would like to freeze time.

We would love to be able to hold on to the power that we have.

Monuments have a role in trying to hold onto that, but it's an elusive grip.

It's impossible, monuments without maintenance money, and mindsets and the systems around them,ú to reinforce those symbols, they just fade into the background.

(soft piano music) - There is a complexity we need to talk about, and that is that the portrait genre, is extraordinarily popular.

Why?

Because people want to be represented.

So the question becomes, in a world filled with human beings who are flawed, how do we tell people stories?

- This is the site of the Frank Rizzo statue.

His campaign slogan was Vote White.

- Energy is real, if you walk by a monument, a statue, a mural or whatever, and this is, to someone who proliferated, hate, inequality, you're gonna feel that, even if you don't realize it, you're gonna feel it.

(soft piano music) - And now it's just these gray steps, is this good enough?

What should happen at this space?

- They should put a statue of a black activist.

- I think there should be like a plaque, explaining why it was taken down, and like what caused it to be taken down.

- Yeah, we could forget that we live in a city that put up a Rizzo statue, we could forget that we live in a city that took down a Rizzo statue, we live in a city where for years, the city, said it would take down the statue but didn't, is this is a complicated story?

- [Host] His statue was set to be moved next year, but earlier this week, Mayor Jim Kenney said he would expedite that timeline.

- So Rizzo did come down because of public safety, and it expedited the process.

It's cost, that's a driving factor.

It would've cost about $100,000, to remove the Rizzo statue, which is one of the reasons that the city was gonna wait to remove the statue, when it had to renovate the Plaza anyway.

- [Interviewer] Would Rizzo have gone up today?

- Rizzo would not have gone up in front of the MSB building.

It may have gone up in a different location, in a community that would welcome a Rizzo statue, but the problem was the location of it, not only was he controversial because he was such a polarizing figure, but it was in front of the Municipal Services Building, that is used by all Philadelphians.

So if you were a Philadelphian, who felt that Rizzo did not represent your values, you had to walk past him every day.

And these are your tax dollars, you're going onto public property, to do your public business.

And so that was a real issue.

It was the location as much as the nature of that piece of public art.

- No symbol is neutral, no public space is neutral.

I think one of the reasons the city delayed on its promise, to actually remove the statue after they said it was inappropriate, for its placement, was as I understood looking for another place, as if that harm wouldn't travel.

- What happens next?

Well, a plan needs to be developed.

It can be donated, it can be relocated or the statute could be disposed of altogether.

- I think it's incredibly important, for all cities, especially Philadelphia, to have candid conversations about the monuments, that we have inherited.

The approach to finding, the problematic monuments or murals and plucking them out, is not the main goal.

It's to figure out how we've gone about making a public art collection that on one hand, a lot of people have pride in but is so clearly lacking in representation, of the complicated parts of our history.

Of enslavement, of subjugation, of working class and grassroots stories.

(upbeat music) - We're in a city, where people love murals, everywhere we go, people have a special connection to the mural that's in their neighborhood.

People feel proud of the fact that we're known internationally as the city of murals.

(soft piano music) I always say, that the murals in this city are truly the autobiography of Philadelphia.

- What's your favorite mural?

(dramatic music) - Rizzo.

- Really?

- Yeah.

Or Frank Sinatra.

- Oh, good.

That's good to hear.

See, isn't that great like people have an answer to what's your favorite mural.

And what's yours?

- I'm with the mural arts program.

We've done 4,000, 5,000 murals in the city, and there was not a mural that, incurred the kind of emotions, that that piece of artwork did.

And a lot of people don't know this, the mural went up under the Ant-Graffiti Network.

- We will not tolerate it, that we want them to use their images, in a different way.

- I know that we had done a portrait mural of Wilson Goode, and I know that there were many people in South Philly, especially who really clamored for a mural of Frank Rizzo.

And so I think the powers that we felt like there should be a Frank Rizzo mural and so essentially, we were told we should do this.

One could say, "Well, you didn't have to do it.

You could have walked away.

The truth is, I don't know.

I don't say this is an excuse but more informational that I'm not from Philly.

I hadn't been in Philadelphia for a long time, I vaguely knew about Frank Rizzo.

I felt it was complicated, I voiced my objections at the time, but I was one small person at Anti-Graffiti.

(soft piano music) We tried to find a location that was suitable for the mural.

We felt like that was very important, and we thought we did, and the neighbors seemed quite happy.

And we found an artist who was from South Philadelphia, a portrait painter, Diane Keller, and she seemed quite excited.

And we did the mural.

- I'm Diane Keller.

- Oh my God!

- Hi.

Nice to meet you.

Hi, nice to meet you.

- Oh, that's wonderful.

- I did the Rizzo, and Frank Sinatra, and Mario Lonza.

My work is somewhat decorative anyway, and it always has been somewhat decorative, and I like it there, I didn't like to mess up my work, with a social agenda.

That's how I felt about it.

So, of course I was probably the perfect person to do the Rizzo mural.

(laughs) This was probably, 1995.

And this is the first painting of the Rizzo mural.

This is when we first did it.

- [Interviewer] Can you tell me about that facial expression?

- On Rizzo?

Yeah, well that was the, official mayoral photograph, that they gave me.

So there he was sitting at his desk with his hands like that and I just, put his whole torso in.

But yeah, that was the picture they wanted.

So I didn't have too much wiggle room on the expression as far as that went.

I thought it always sort of cut in both ways.

If you thought he was the big hero, then it was the big hero.

And if you thought he was a big ogre, if you thought he was, a racist, homophobe or whatever, then he could look hoking and big and menacing, because the expression on his face was just very neutral.

And the bigness of him in that scene, was great for the guys who loved him.

I was the queen of the Italian market when I did that.

And they were loving me, they loved it.

Everybody was just very supportive.

Pretty much from the beginning, I'd get some negative feedback like how could you do that?

Why would you do that?

Well, it was a job and I got paid, and that's how I approached it.

And it was fun.

And because it was, not the thing to do, I wanted to do it, but as I said now, I wouldn't do it now.

(soft piano music) - Dear Michelle, I want to thank you once again for the drawing you gave me at St. Paul's Church last Sunday, I was very pleased to receive it.

And it showed a great deal of time, effort and talent on your part.

Again, many thanks, I'm very grateful.

Sincerely, Frank L. Rizzo.

(soft piano music) (Michelle speaking foreign language) I was in the eighth grade, when Frank Rizzo was running, as a Republican against Ed Rendell, a Democrat.

And there was a drawing competition to honor the visit of Frank Rizzo in the community, and I won the contest.

And part of winning the contest was presenting the poster to Frank Rizzo at this rally.

This sense of pride of like he is from our community, he's one of us, he's from here, that was basically how people welcomed him, and that was what we understood of him.

I did not learn about the violence towards Latino and black communities.

I didn't learn about move, until I was already a young adult.

(soft piano music) When we look at the market right now, the contribution is not Rizzo.

It's not the wall, the contribution and the value, are those Italian families, that laid the groundwork, to create a market, that then also opened other opportunities, for Mexican, Southeast Asian, and even my own family, to be here and to thrive.

(women chattering in foreign language) Within my process, it is not about painting a pretty picture.

(woman speaking foreign language) (man speaking foreign language) Because I start first with a conversation, versus here's the design, those conversations then feed into, what is the actual visual narrative that will be shown, that will be seen.

And that sense of ownership is so important as an artist, entering and exiting a community because this is the other layer.

This is my community, and feeling like I belong and don't belong.

(group cheering) I'm excited to bring this event here to my neighborhood, and my home, and so the idea is to begin to really think about our stories.

Tonight this evening, we're honoring our ancestors.

(Miguel singing in foreign language) My goal, as I'm kind of processing this and through my art activations, through the conversations that I'm having, is to look past, the superficiality of the symbols that don't necessarily represent the in depth, contribution of the community.

(Miguel singing in foreign language) I don't ever look at public art and in particular murals, as being forever.

If it can last forever, great.

(laughs) But if not, I feel that it's also valuable and important for that moment in time that it existed.

(Miguel singing in foreign language) (audience clapping) (bright upbeat music) - This idea of permanence is definitely something that is different in black communities.

And part of what we look at, is what are those traditions of passing on stories, whether it's through oral histories, through sounds, other ways that we have built, so-called monuments that mark our place in time.

(bright upbeat music) Our monuments may not be like big statuesque things, they may be murals on the wall, or graffiti art or other things that are just constantly, getting erased that do tell the stories of our communities, and do tell the stories of our neighborhood heroes, but they're often covered up by luxury housing.

- The word community means family.

When you build a monument, there's an intention behind that.

You're speaking, to a particular set of people.

That's why it's so important, to build these monuments, where I can see myself.

- And hold it down, you can record some questions.

- About the neighborhood.

In black Quantum Futurism, we speak about all the different components that come together to make a story.

And it brings a sense of agency to the community member.

It says that once you arrive to the monument or the sculpture, it has begun.

- The word home means to me, somewhere safe where you can go, and relax.

- We realize that we don't have many of black people, African Americans, we don't have many of women.

So, I feel like not the duty of the artist, but it should be a part of the imagination.

(bright upbeat music) - This is one of the newest statues in the city of Philadelphia, and the activism that we see today is in the tradition in the line of activism, that Octavius Catto represents.

Public history is all about the history that we learn outside of the classroom.

Sometimes that history is not factual.

Sometimes that history is biased, it's all about what we as a community believe, what we as a community understand when it comes to history, and how we engage with spaces and places that convey those understandings.

- [Interviewer] Given how problematic so many of this country's monuments are, should we still continue to erect monuments?

- If my answer to your question is no, that means there's no Catto monument.

I ride past City Hall and I always, have this opportunity to tell my children, I worked on that, and I can be proud about the person, that is being represented in that space.

And I can be just as proud to say, there's a blank space, around the corner, based on work that so many of my friends and colleagues worked on over the past several years.

- The first thing we wanted to have, enough people, within the site, of that Citadel of discrimination, and that cesspool of segregation, and that cancerous wall of bias, that these boys been waking up a long time, and their mothers, and their fathers, woke up a long time looking at something that was in America that they couldn't have.

And we think we are just about getting close enough so we can have it.

- I feel like the older I get, certain things I don't wanna do.

If there's anything that I don't feel good about doing then I'm not gonna do it.

It feels great to be working on this mural.

I feel like it's important.

I feel like it has a lot to do with what's going on now in the world.

I definitely don't mind painting Cecil B Moore, he was like a champion of the people.

I think they used to call him, the Lion of North Philadelphia and nobody else stood up for other people at North Philly more than him.

- Hey.

- Hey, Jamie.

- How are you?

It's so good to see you.

- Good to see you too.

- Wow!

- So yeah.

- This is looking good.

- It's coming along, we're off to a good start.

- Oh, my goodness!

I love this project.

There are lots of great works of art that are telling really difficult stories.

Art does that.

It is a mirror of our times.

And you wouldn't want that to change.

Because that would be tragic, but I keep going back, to the moral dilemma, of Frank Rizzo, and it just seemed no matter what, his image, it was just not to be, the trauma that it caused outweighed anything else.

(soft piano music) Every time I see this, I just get chills.

It's so great.

(siren blaring) (water whooshing) - The day after the statue came down, I called my mom, and this was a rough moment.

And I'm like, "Mom, did you hear?

They took the Rizzo statue down?"

She was like, my mom's a little Italian woman from South Philly, just so you know.

88, "Great, that is the best news I've heard in a while.

I never liked that thing, and they should have took it down a long time ago.

And I'm glad that it's gone."

Do we have to say anything else 'cause the original South Philly, Jawn, (laughs) just said, she's glad it's gone.

(soft piano music) - [Artist] Momentum, momentum.

Monument, monument.

Monument, monument.

Momentum, movement, Movement, staying, Can a city move, and stand still, at the same time?

Yes, if it's magic.

If it's magic.

Ode, to Philly ♪ Like a bell named Liberty ♪ ♪ Let freedom ring ♪ ♪ Even though correct ♪ ♪ She still manages to see ♪ ♪ Her sound resonates ♪ ♪ Both far and wide ♪ ♪ Demonstrates ♪ ♪ How to be broken ♪ ♪ But still have pride ♪ ♪ Pride ♪ - [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by.