As you head west on Georgia Highway 116 from Shiloh, Georgia, you will see a fantastic mural on the side of an old convenience store. I believe the mural reimagines Leonardo Davinci’s The Last Supper because the crucial figures in Black history surround a table with food and drink. Based on Google Street View, the mural was painted sometime between 2008 and 2013 by an artist the neighboring business identified as “Kenyatta.” Unfortunately, my frequent backroads photo companion, Brian Brown, and I could not sleuth out who this is or if they have additional work that we could see.
Thankfully, the artist wrote the names of most of the depictions in small letters. Despite the fading, Brian and I believe we correctly identified almost everyone. We’ve tentatively identified the two figures at the center as Muhammad and Jesus Christ. However, there are arguments for and against why each one is the one who is identified. The identifications are below. It is a mixture of educators, activists, and religious leaders. I linked to their Wikipedia bios if you want to know more about who was featured.
If you are the artist or know him, please send a message. I would love to see more of his work. Also, please let me know if anyone was misidentified or knows the store’s name. I know the store was built in 1955, but I do not know any other history.
