Medford Post Office Mural A Grim Reminder Of Past

MEDFORD, MA — The nationwide discussion around race has renewed a familiar call in Medford: Take down — or do something — about the Golden Triangle of Trade mural at the Forest Street post office. The three-panel painting inside the building is an uncomfortable reminder of the country's history, juxtaposing a fully clothed, relaxed white man next to a shirtless slave lugging sugar cane on his back.

The mural was installed in 1939 as a celebration of Medford's earliest industries, shipbuilding and distilling rum. The title – the Golden Triangle of Trade – refers to the triangular exchange of goods and enslaved Africans.

It was commissioned through the Federal Arts Project to be painted at the post office, Medford's first federal building, which was built two years earlier under the Works Progress Administration.

New York-based artist Henry Billings was chosen to paint the mural. But it turned out Billings, a Long Island native, did not know much about the community his art was supposed to represent, said Kyna Hamill, a reference volunteer at the Medford Historical Society and Museum.

Hamill, who serves as a director of the Core Curriculum at Boston University, began researching the painting's history about nine years ago, around the same time another call to remove it came and went.

She found that not only was Billings unfamiliar with Medford, but much of the work he did was outside of his "artistic comfort zone." The former was not uncommon of federally commissioned artists, and old newspaper articles show that Billings did some research with the help of the Medford Public Library and the Medford Historical Society.

"Keep in mind that this mural was commissioned to an outsider, and no matter how much Billings researched the history of Medford, his finished product was an idealistic and not a realistic impression of Medford's history," she wrote in a 2011 Historical Society newsletter.

Hamill is a member of Delta Diversity, a group formed in 2018 after the latest effort to get the mural taken down fizzled out. Members of the group have "very different opinions about what should happen to the mural, but are committed to talking about it civilly and listening to each other," Hamill told Patch.

The mural was one of 1,100 painted at post offices and schools across the United States under the Works Progress Administration and the bulk of them are still on display today. Many are controversial, as they depict African Americans and Native Americans and their histories through the lens of the 1930s, Hamill said.

"Monuments that are put up that are representing history are not usually placed in their own time," she said. "There's the moment that it happened, the interpretive period and the future that's looking back and saying, wait a minute you got something wrong here."

Medford's debate is a microcosm of a larger conversation — one that's happening in cities and towns nationwide. As the post office is a federal building, what happens to the painting is ultimately not up to the community.

Hamill said she worked for four years to hang a plaque at the post office explaining the history of the mural and first had to get the text approved by the United States Postal Service. Delta Diversity has taken the issue "as far as it could go," Hamill said, and needs a "senator or politician to help take it to the next step."

Neil Osborne, Medford's director of Diversity & Inclusion and acting director of Human Resources, first mentioned the mural to former mayor Michael McGlynn more than a decade ago. At the time, Osborne was the president of the local branch of the NAACP.

"I learned that he agreed with the sentiment, but he doesn't have control over that," Osborne said. "It's not a city building."

Osborne has encouraged Delta Diversity's work but said the first challenge is finding a solution for the painting.

"Some want it destroyed, some want it removed, some want it better explained," he told Patch. "But they all keep coming back and working on fixing what to do because they don't like the status quo."

Osborne echoed the feeling that getting the attention of the USPS is no small feat. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Delta Diversity had about seven members who were meeting regularly, but plans to energize the community were derailed by the coronavirus shutdown. The group is examining how to use its representatives, but the effort is going to fall on the people of Medford to place pressure on the USPS.

"We have to demonstrate that we're not going to accept that imagery in our community," Osborne said. He told Patch the movement to do something with the mural seems different this time around, but he worries that "things will slip back to the status quo."

"I want people to be talking about race and belonging," said Osborne. "What to do with this mural forces that."