Restoring Community Public Art

All of Mankind

William Walker, 1973
617 W. Evergreen Ave.

Walker spent three years covering the exterior and interior of the San Marcello Mission Church with murals about the unity--and disunity--of the human race. Located at the edge of the Cabrini-Green public housing complex, the church facade features one of Walker’s recurring motifs: four heads, representing different races, interlocked in a symbol of brotherhood and goodwill. Around the window is a list of civil rights-related martyrs and events, including Dr. King, Medgar Evers, the My Lai Massacre, and the shootings at Kent State. The future of Chicago’s “little Sistine Chapel,” now the Strangers Home Missionary Baptist Church, is uncertain. Efforts are being made to save the church and the mural.

For more information about the All of Mankind mural and our preservation efforts, click here>>