Graffiti News

A women's suffrage mural on the Lower East Side gives a school wall a commemorative role: introducing people whose work helped shape women's political and public lives. According to AM New York's October 25, 2026 report, Still Our Fight occupies a previously blank brick exterior at P.S. 134 Henrietta Szold School, at 293 East Broadway in Manhattan. More than 100 adults and students attended its dedication.

The work measures 37 feet by 83 feet and depicts 16 women. Its scale provides the first encounter; a key in the lower left-hand corner provides a second, identifying the figures and offering a QR code for more information. For mural visitors, that relationship between the whole wall and individual names is central to reading the piece.

A school wall makes remembrance part of a daily route

The setting places a historical artwork alongside the repeated movements of school life. Chicago-based public art initiative Monumenta conceived and completed the mural. AM New York reports that Monumenta approached nearby Henry Street Settlement, which connected the project with school principal Robert Perales. He welcomed it as a memorial to the figures it portrays.

Perales described the work as a daily reminder for children of the courage involved in challenging unfairness. That is an intention for the wall, rather than a measured claim about its effect. The distinction matters when considering educational public art: a mural can offer repeated opportunities to notice, ask and learn without every encounter becoming a formal lesson.

School murals also give viewers a reason to consider the building as part of the artwork's meaning. The same image can be encountered on an ordinary journey, with a different detail noticed each time. Here, the names give those return visits a practical focus.

Sam Kirk's team connected painting with conversation

Sam Kirk designed the mural and painted it with a team of six women artists. It belongs to Monumenta's National Suffrage Mural Series, following works unveiled in Chicago, with additional cities planned, according to the report.

The painting process itself drew questions from passersby. Participating artist Danielle Mastrion described people asking what the work represented and responding to the all-women team. For people who follow mural culture, that is a useful part of the story: public engagement can begin while an image is still being made.

The makers deserve attention alongside the subjects. A commemorative wall brings historical representation and contemporary artistic labor into the same frame. Looking at the names of the artists as well as those of the portrayed figures helps keep both visible, without assuming that a shared subject gives every painter the same perspective.

Sixteen portraits open a larger history

The figures represent a selection from a wider history, and not all worked directly on women's suffrage. AM New York identifies Laura Cornelius Kellogg, a member of the Oneida nation, as an example of a leader whose work involved women's empowerment in that era. Reading every portrait as the same kind of activist would flatten that distinction.

Neysa Page-Lieberman, co-director of the National Suffrage Mural Series and Monumenta's artistic director, said hundreds of suffragists contributed to securing the vote, although the mural features 16 people. Fellow series co-director Michelle Duster is the great-granddaughter of suffrage leader Ida B. Wells.

A commemorative mural necessarily makes choices about whom to show. Its portraits can serve as starting points for research rather than a complete roster of a movement. The key makes that approach tangible: identify one person, return to the image, then follow the available information beyond the wall.

The amendment and a musical connect the project's history

The 19th Amendment provides the legal reference point. The source reports that Congress passed it on June 4, 1919, and that three-quarters of state legislatures had ratified it by August 18, 1920. Its provision prohibits denying or abridging United States citizens' voting rights on account of sex. That principle helps orient the mural's subject without reducing every depicted life to a single legislative event.

The musical Suffs also influenced the project's reach. Page-Lieberman told AM New York that the team initially intended to concentrate on Chicago, but the musical about the amendment's passage encouraged a national series. It is a specific connection between performance and public art: one form of historical storytelling helped prompt another to expand geographically.

The name key is the useful starting point for a visit

Look for the key in the lower left-hand corner, then use it to connect names with faces. According to AM New York, its QR code leads to further information. The report describes passersby stopping to look and checking the key to identify the subjects.

A useful viewing sequence is to take in the whole work from a safe place, consult the names, and return to individual figures. Comparing information with what is actually visible encourages closer observation without requiring assumptions about unreported colors, symbols or techniques.

Because this is a school exterior, keep entrances and pedestrian routes clear and do not assume that viewing the mural includes access to school grounds. The setting remains part of daily neighborhood life. Still Our Fight offers a way to look at a large historical image through small, specific acts of attention: finding a name, recognizing a distinction and following a thread of history further.