Artist Hopes King Mural Heals City’s Wounds

The citywide vote in November to strip the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name from a downtown street divided a community. But in that split, Mario Acevedo Torero saw unity.

Torero, a local artist whose murals adorn several Southeast San Diego walls, has painted another mural, he said, to help heal the friction and to serve as a tribute to the slain civil rights leader on the street that once bore his name.

The vote reinstating Market Street was “a teaser to do something greater,” he said. “They took it away and there was a unification. When people come together, there are no limits to what people can accomplish.”

Finished Friday

On a graffiti-marred wall behind Wright’s Party Supplies store, on the corner of 26th and Market streets, Torero’s tribute was completed Friday: a mural depicting King and the words “Remember the Martin Luther King Jr. Way 1986-1987.”

“Sometimes history is made in strange ways,” the Mission Hills artist said. “Martin Luther King had to die to do greater things. And so a name had to be changed to create even greater things.”

Torero, 40, finished the 18-by-36-foot mural in time for the eighth annual Martin Luther King Day parade, which will start at 11 a.m. today on Market Street, traveling from 22nd Street to Columbia Street.

The mural is “something that’s constantly talking to the people” and a reminder of a short-lived memorial to King, Torero said.

“You have to remember some things . . . that’s what history is all about,” he said. “That’s what makes us rich. We have a history and we have to record it, if not in a book, then in a mural. People without a history have no future.

“We have taken for granted too much,” he added. “Everything is given to us on a platter. Although we have fought for some of the things we have, children forget our history.”

Albert Morales, the 77-year-old owner of Wright’s Party Supplies, agreed.

Piece of City’s History

“I thought the essence of the whole thing is that Martin Luther King was a peace-loving individual,” said Morales, who has owned the store for 40 years. “We need to preserve some of that for generations to come.”

The mural, he said, also depicts “a piece of history that has happened in the growth of our city.”

He said he has not heard any unfavorable remarks from customers since work on the mural began Thursday.

Friday afternoon, as Torero and two assistants made finishing touches, several people stopped to admire the mural. “It’s beautiful,” said one shopper.

The mural was expected to cost about $500, with most of the money coming from private donations, Torero said.

Among Torero’s other murals is an 8-by-200-foot panorama depicting history’s peacemakers, from Jesus Christ to Martin Luther King, near the intersection of Imperial Avenue and 32rd Street. Its dedication in 1986 coincided with the first national holiday commemorating King’s birth.

Torero, who came to San Diego from Peru at the age of 13, runs the Acevedo Art Gallery Internacional in Mission Hills. The gallery features the work of international artists “committed to peace and justice,” said Torero’s wife, Rita Sanchez-Acevedo.