Fortune Mural Dedication Ceremony

Written By John Mills

On November 2nd at 11am, in collaboration with the city of Waterbury, the North End Rec and The RiseUp Group, my non-profit held a dedication ceremony to unveil a new mural for a former enslaved man in Waterbury named Fortune.

The ceremony included many speakers, including Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski, State Representative Geraldo Reyes, State Representative Larry Brown, State Representative Ron Napoli and Senator Joan Hartley. We also had an amazing song performed by Ramona Hunter and the most incredible poem recited by 7-year-old Mealnie Harris McFarlane!

I have been doing video production and editing for over 25 years. I captured the entire ceremony and edited it down. If interested, you can view the program on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3zHV9Zjudc.

The dedication ceremony was one of the most emotional, joyful and impactful events I’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of. Thank you to everyone who helped us raise the funds to produce this mural, to all the steering committee members who helped us complete this task, and to the North End Rec and city who were more than willing to partner with us on this.

We have many more projects underway. Please consider helping us. If interested, you can donate at https://alexbreanne.org/donate.

God Bless,

John



John Mills

Originally from San Diego, John Mills is a technologist by trade, but an equity advocate and independent scholar by passion. The descendant of both southern and northern enslaved, John focuses on unearthing little known people and stories of this country’s history in slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. John presents research through the lens and perspective of a descendant, with intent to inspire understanding and empathy, a means to inspire good, God fearing people, now armed with information, to look into whether they may be unwittingly aligning to biases resulting from the reverberating effects of a past time. John is a member of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and a member of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum Council. John is also working with an international team funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in an effort to deliver transformational impact on digital methods in cultural institutions...a means to decolonize museums. Finally, John is working with the state of Connecticut, business leaders and scholars in Middletown, CT to honor and memorialize a former enslaved individual by the name of Prince Mortimer.

https://alexbreanne.org
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Mural Dedication Ceremony for Fortune