St. Pete pastors arrested at 'Black History Matters' mural as FDOT removes city

[Sancho]

https://www.cltampa.com/news/st-pete-pastors-arrested-at-black-history-matters-mural-20694093?

Crews from the Florida Department of Transportation arrived around 8 p.m. to paint over the mural outside the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum, according to a spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department. That's when Oliver and Atherton walked past police, then sat and knelt down to pray in the road and refused to move "in an attempt to block the FDOT machinery."

They were both charged with misdemeanor obstruction and "Pedestrian obstructing or hindering traffic," according to SPPD's public information officer.

The Subject Charge Report from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office says Oliver, 45, has been released on cash bond and charged with resisting an officer w/o violence a misdemeanor. Atherton-Zeman, 45, has also been released on cash bond and faces the same charges.

After their release Oliver and Atherton-Zeman returned to the site of the mural and went to social media to cite a letter penned in 1915 by Woodson himself to the then-president of Washington D.C.'s NAACP chapter.

It is just a mural painted on an intersection. Worth getting arrested? Staying up all night to repaint the road? When enough people realize that the ethics and principles are the point, we can win.

[msongs]

1. more useful than going on a book tour IMO nt

[hunter]

2. Museum link with photo of mural:

https://woodsonmuseum.org/

[marble falls]

3. When my opportunity comes, I pray for his courage.