Through December, a community mural created at the 2025 Juneteenth celebration will be on display at YDL-Michigan.
Local artists Avery Williamson (whose work has been featured in The New York Times) and Krista Skytta worked with local kids to create and put together the piece. YDL staff members Daishayanea Jackson and Shayla Card-Nowlin organized the project as part of the Kids Korner at Ypsilanti’s 2025 Juneteenth Celebration.
Here’s how the artists describe the work:
The artwork draws inspiration from Gee’s Bend quilts, the Juneteenth flag, the Pan-African flag and Jacob Lawrence’s (artist) work called “The Migration Series.” When all the panels are together they show a quilt, but we also designed this artwork so that each individual panel can be displayed on its own! The final artwork depicts a selection of plants that are native to Texas and Michigan, and all the states in between. Texas is where Juneteenth was first and primarily celebrated, but I wanted to find a way to tie in the earliest celebrations of Juneteenth to our own celebration here in Ypsilanti. We wanted to use imagery of plants and flowers to help emphasize resilience, belonging, and the reminder that we can set down roots and bloom even in tough conditions.
Check out the colorful results of this community collaboration above the main stairway.
