On the morning of Tuesday, June 16, a racist graffiti message was found on the wall of McKinley Elementary School. The graffiti read “Whites Only” in red spray paint. The message has since been removed and the community has written dozens of chalk messages along the walls of the school in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“[The graffiti] sends the message there’s still work to do – we can’t turn a blind eye or believe that acts of racism don’t happen in our neighborhoods. That’s a weight for our whole community to bear,” Lillian Govus, Director of Communications and Community Relations for Salem Keizer School District, said.
As soon as the message was discovered by the facilities manager, he covered the graffiti with butcher paper so that no one who visited the school saw it. The graffiti was then removed by him, Principal Michelle Nelson and Chris Young, a policy analyst for the state and the parent of a first grader at McKinley.
Young learned about the graffiti through his wife who heard about it on a PTA call that morning. He said that as soon as he heard about it, he ran up to the school on his next break and saw it “in all its ugliness.” He mentioned that the message was “particularly harmful” because of where it was located, a place he sees kids playing at almost daily, many of them kids of color.
“[The message] was not in a high profile spot… It was where kids play, It was where kids pick up their free lunches,” Young said, “It wasn’t a prank or a hoax. It was a targeted message.”
When he arrived, he ran into Nelson and facilities manager. He said that Nelson immediately “expressed her disgust” that someone would write a hateful message there. They all agreed that they needed to get rid of the message before the kids began arriving at 11 a.m. to pick up free lunches.
McKinley is one of the almost 30 schools in Salem-Keizer which provides free bagged meals for students daily during the work week, including that Tuesday. An average of 900 meals are served every week at McKinley.
“McKinley is one of our schools where our community gathers daily for free meals for youth, and to know that a vandal had tried to break the welcoming spirit at our schools was heartbreaking,” Govus said.
In order to prevent children from seeing the racist message, Young returned to his house to get paint removal supplies and the three of them removed the graffiti. A member of Salem Police Department’s graffiti abatement team came later to get rid of the rest of the red residue left from the message. Young said that the man told him that if there was ever a graffiti message like this one at McKinley or elsewhere in the city to contact him directly and he will get rid of it.
Following the removal, Young’s wife, Maria Young, organized a chalk writing at McKinley. Members of the community came to write chalk messages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. People continue to add to the chalk messages.
“Undeterred, our students, parents and neighbors gathered to ensure inclusive messages took its place,” Govus said.
As of Wednesday evening dozens and dozens of messages of support, inclusion and solidarity have been written along the wall in front of the school and on the wall where the racist message was found by the playground. The messages include statements such as “We Care About You,” “Black Lives Matter,” “We Are One,” “Choose Love,” “All Are Welcome,” “Anti-Racist School” and “United We Stand,” among other things.
“People can try to spread their hate, but it will always give into love,” Chris Young said of the reaction from the community.
To reduce the possibility of this from happening again, Salem-Keizer has said that they will continue regular nightly patrols at their facilities for vandalism, despite the buildings being closed.
The incident is currently being investigated as a bias crime by Salem Police Department. Salem police have not seen an increase in bias crimes in recent weeks.
Positive chalk messages cover the walls of McKinley Elementary School. Photos by Eddy Binford-Ross
