This enlightening film starts out with a print caption stating that in 1779 George Washington ordered a major attack on Iroquois Nations and demanded the destruction and devastation of their settlements and crops. Not surprisingly, the outcome to native lands was shattering. The documentary then concentrates on a controversial art display at George Washington High School in San Francisco.
Stunning 13-panel murals created in 1936 by Russian immigrant Victor Arnautoff as part of the New Deal depict slavery, genocide, and the “ugly history” of George Washington with the center mural showing a dead native man face down on the ground. As one mother protesting the murals at a school board meeting says, my child should never be subjected to classmates telling their friends to meet them at the “dead Indian.”
School board meetings in 2019 show people speaking on both sides of the issue with viewpoints ranging from tearing down or painting over the colorful murals to letting them stay along with other artwork in the school, including murals done by 20-year-old Dewey Crumpler in 1970 that depict multi-ethnic heritage and slavery.
The documentary then veers away from school board meetings to interview artists, authors, and scholars, mostly of native heritage. The interviewed experts have multiple perspectives with many stating that the controversial murals stand as a visual record of genocide and art should not be censored. Arnautoff’s murals show that the founding father, a slave owner and land speculator, was a man with many contradictions.
Viewers also are taken to other locations to see murals at the Great Wall of Los Angeles and art and pop culture items at the Smithsonian Natural Museum of American Indian History in Washington, DC. With recent talk of censorship and tearing down statues of Confederate heroes, this timely documentary invites discussions in U. S. history, American culture, and art classrooms and has earned a spot in school and public library collections beyond San Francisco. Recommended.