“The Bloom of Resilience” Brings Austin’s History to Life

One of the newest public art installations on the West Side tells the sweeping story of Austin’s Black community — from the Great Migration to the rise of leaders like Congressman Danny K. Davis, one of six prominent West Siders whose faces dominate the mural.

Community members gathered Sept. 6 to unveil The Bloom of Resilience, which covers the west-facing wall of the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, 5500 W. Madison St. The 15-foot-tall mural stretches 106 feet along the exterior and wraps 37 feet inside the building.

The work is by artist Shawn Michael Warren, an Austin native once commissioned by Oprah Winfrey to paint her portrait for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Winfrey discovered Warren after seeing his West Loop mural at 855 W. Madison St.

“From the mural, there was an energy that came through that I thought expressed everything I’ve tried to be,” Winfrey said in 2023. “And I said, ‘I think he’s the one.’”

Darnell Shields, executive director of Austin Coming Together (ACT), said Warren stood out during last year’s request-for-proposals process.

“He was leagues above everyone else,” Shields said at the unveiling. “He knew this needed to be community-led, and he understood the assignment.”

Warren, who lived in Austin until age 6, worked closely with community members selected by Austin Forward.Together — the neighborhood’s quality-of-life plan — and the Westside Health Authority (WHA). The groups co-developed the Aspire Center and budgeted up to $150,000 for the mural.

“This was a full-circle moment for me,” Warren said. “I wanted the community in the driver’s seat. The mural had to be shaped by their voices, memories, and dreams.”

Warren, a graduate of the American Academy of Art in Chicago, painted the piece on mural cloth (polytab), a lightweight synthetic fabric that allows artists to work indoors and then install panels on-site.

The mural’s northern section shows Black life in the South, then transitions to a partial map of Illinois and the Midwest. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the pioneering heart surgeon who founded the nation’s first non-segregated hospital, appears next to an image of doctors in surgery. Beneath them, a chrysanthemum — Chicago’s official flower — blooms.

Other sections highlight Austin’s “children of the migration” — prominent residents who came north from the South.

Among them:

• Leola Spann, education and healthcare advocate and longtime head of the Northwest Austin Council, who died in 2005.
• Mildred Wiley, founding ACT chairperson and fixture at Bethel New Life, who died in 2019. “She set me straight real quick,” Shields recalled. “She said, ‘If you want to learn this work, you gotta get out here in the community.’ From that day on, I was forged by the fire of Mildred Wiley.”
• MacArthur “Mac” Alexander, founder of the iconic soul food restaurant MacArthur’s. His niece and manager, Sharon McKennie, shared, “Mac gave me my first job — and fired me. He told me, ‘You have to listen. When you learn, then you speak.’ I’ve been running MacArthur’s since 1997.”

Inside the Aspire Center, the mural continues with portraits of Congressman Davis and Jacqueline Reed, WHA’s founder.

“Danny Davis is the greatest historian on the West Side I’ve ever talked to,” Reed said. “He’s always been the leader for us in Congress.”

Davis recalled Reed’s determination to create WHA.

“She came and said, ‘I’m going to organize a health authority,’” Davis said. “I said, ‘Jackie, an authority? Whose authority?’ She said, ‘The people’s authority.’ And she did.”

State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford praised both Davis and Reed, noting that Davis appears in several other West Side murals.

“When I first ran for office, Jackie Reed got in my face and said, ‘I don’t know who you think you are,’” Ford said. “We need leaders like that who safeguard our community.”

Reed called the mural’s subjects a “cloud of witnesses … so many people have worked and fought out here.”