12th & Yesler Murals
Completed October 5th 2023, this pair of public artworks lives at the crossroads at 12th and Yesler. A collaborative work of Jite Agbro and John Osgood celebrating living Seattle icons Adé Cônnére and Riz Rollins.
Monumental in scale, celebratory in tone, these two street murals render two beloved local icons in sinuous line and bold color. Like their living, breathing subjects, the murals are sanctified personages that cannot be ignored.
The intersection of 12th and Yesler is the meeting of the International District, the Central District, Capitol Hill, and First Hill, is in many ways the middle of the Town. It is also an historic border zone, where the history of segregation is permanently inscribed. In the 1970s, a literal red line was painted here by activists, a visible mark of the injustice that has divided Seattle. This is a site of loss: Dozens of jazz joints lost to official harassment; hundreds of Black families displaced from their homes. It is also a site of resistance, from the Black musicians’ union to the health clinic started by Black Panthers that is still in operation today, there are vibrant legacies still being made right here and right now.