On a hot afternoon in early June, artist Marcos Raya stood on a ladder propped against a concrete wall on 18th Street and applied a fresh coat of gray paint to one of the oldest surviving outdoor antiwar murals in the country. The artwork, Fallen Dictator, shows a crowd of gun-toting revolutionaries—including one carrying a placard of Che Guevara—standing behind the upended statue of a Latin American military leader. A car rolled by, honking its approval. “So many people have thanked us,” Raya said.
A survivor from the era of the grassroots People’s Art movement, Prevent World War III is one of a number of community murals in Chicago that have remained relevant long after much of their imagery has faded. It was the result of a spontaneous call to collective action. Muralist John Weber invited a number of his artist comrades to paint on the Burlington Northern (now BNSF) railroad embankment wall after Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination. Muralists from Pilsen, the rest of the city, and Wisconsin—including Carlos Cortez, José Guerrero, and Caryl Yasko—heeded the call. The crew didn’t seek the rail company’s permission. Weber directed the effort, while Mark Rogovin—who’d soon after cofound the Peace Museum—contributed the filmstrip design, a reference to Reagan’s acting career.
“You have a responsibility for it to mean something,” she said, “to reflect the views of the people—for it to mean something more than just decorating a wall.”
