‘Hate will never win.’ Ardrey Kell students repaint Black Lives Matter rock after vandalism
More than 100 Ardrey Kell High School students gathered Monday to repaint the spirit rock in front of their school in honor of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Last week, six students, with school leaders’ permission, had painted phrases on the rock like “I Can’t Breathe” and “End Police Brutality.” Over the weekend, the rock was defaced.
Student body president Kayden Hunt found the vandalism on Sunday. Someone defaced the Black Lives Matter messages with
phrases like “Blue Lives Matter” and “George Floyd = Home Invader.” The names of those who have died from police brutality were crossed out with red paint.
Hunt started Monday’s repainting session with a speech.
“Look around. This is beyond beautiful,” she said to the crowd. “I would have never expected this when I asked people on my Instagram, ‘Hey, do you want to paint this rock?’ I would never have expected this, and this many people to be here in support.”
Hunt, who is graduating on Tuesday, said the community that showed up made her hopeful for the leaders of the future.
“We need to have our voices to be heard, because we are powerful,” she said. “...This is a community. This is who we are.”
After she spoke, she and several other students started repainting the rock. Students were also able to dip their hands in paint to put their handprints on the rock, as well as write messages in a black notebook which will be a more permanent version of the messages on the rock that will eventually be painted over. The rock is a fixture in front of the high school and is often painted and decorated by students throughout the year.
“BLM”, “NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!”, “We will not be silenced” and “Defund the police” were just a few of the messages written in the book.
Ken Hunt, Kayden Hunt’s father, paused for 20 seconds while thinking of what he wanted to say to the people who defaced the rock. “We can do better,” he finally said. “They can do better, and we welcome them to do better. Perhaps this will be an opportunity to clear up a misunderstanding, perhaps it’ll be an opportunity that just because it’s about black lives mattering, it does not mean that any other life does not matter.”
Kayden Hunt said students at Ardrey Kell have raised more than $2,000 through Venmo, all of which will go toward the Black Lives Matter movement.
A car driving by honked during her speech, and the crowd applauded in response. It was the first of many to do so, as students and community members lined up with signs to face Ardrey Kell Road, cheering whenever another car driving down the road honked at them.
Students started repainting the rock around 3:30 p.m. They finished around 6:30 p.m. The newly painted rock shows a black fist — a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement — surrounded by names of victims of police brutality, including Freddie Gray and Breonna Taylor, and the words “Black Lives Matter” in purple paint. Over the handprints of students, the words “hate will never win” are painted in white.
“We want to spread love in this area, to spread that we belong here, we deserve to feel comfortable here as black students,” Kayden Hunt said. “And I think that’s so important.”
