On Hull Street in Manchester, the ‘Brown Girl Narratives’ mural is an ode to black women

By SABRINA MORENO Richmond Times-Dispatch via https://www.richmond.com/

If the walls of Hull Street could talk, they’d speak of loss. As years passed, its booming black businesses became a desolate stretch of graffitied windows and brick walls, added to a collection of buildings transformed into rooftop bars and yoga studios that have branded Manchester as “up and coming.”

But on the right side of Max Market convenience store — sandwiched between Croaker’s Spot, dubbed “the soul of seafood,” and the Butterbean Market & Cafe, a kombucha and craft beer destination — sits “Brown Girl Narratives,” a 20-by-60-foot-tall mural infusing color onto a dulled gray street, a reminder of the Hull Street that once was.

Seven black women of different shades, shapes, hair and sizes are embraced by a sky-blue hand weaving across and around them, linking the women together.

Within each woman’s body are quotes and phrases from the research that inspired this…

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