Instead, supporters have faced resistance from local officials. Members of the Hyannis Main Street Waterfront Historic District Commission suggested they preferred something less controversial for the spot, asked for numerous changes to the plans, and delayed making a decision for weeks, according to recordings of public meetings. When they finally voted on the mural last month, several abstained.
The move effectively blocked the plan without officials having to formally oppose it, according to the mural’s backers, including Mary George, a member of The Arts & Justice Collective, a coalition of three nonprofits and community organizations on Cape Cod. The group uses art and activities to empower members of historically excluded groups.
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“It’s a reasonable conclusion that the content of the mural is what bothered these folks, and it felt to us like they kept grasping for reasons to justify that,” George said in an interview.
Perhaps most aggravating for proponents was the moment last month when a member of the town commission mused about an alternative subject for a mural: members of the Kennedy family, whose storied history is told at the JFK Hyannis Museum down the block from the proposed mural site.
“I can think of two very famous people that I’d love to see up on that wall, is JFK and RFK,” the member, Thomas Doherty, said at an Oct. 2 meeting. “They have strengthened voting rights.”
Now that the proposal is stalled, advocates say they intend to appeal the decision.
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“We deserve for our art to be displayed,” said Tara Vargas Wallace, another member of The Arts & Justice Collective. “We contribute to the town, we deserve to be heard, seen, represented, and felt.”
Barnstable town officials, including Doherty, did not respond to Globe requests for comment. The mural controversy was first reported by the Cape Cod Times.
Fortes, who died in 2006 at age 94, was never preoccupied with her legacy as she focused on building a stronger, more inclusive community, said Dolores DaLuz, 90, who worked with Fortes for years on civil rights issues in the region.
“She was active right up to her last days, asking people for whatever needed to be done in the community,” DaLuz said in an interview. “She was a trailblazer.”
Fortes immigrated to the United States when she was 9, arriving in New Bedford. She came to Hyannis as a young adult and over the years worked in a factory and as a housekeeper, cocktail server, and a baker in the Barnstable school system, where she helped organize a union of cafeteria workers.
Fortes was seen as the conscience of the community for her vocal and consistent presence at board meetings to argue on behalf of residents of color and lower-income residents. In the early 1960s, she picketed a local restaurant that barred Black people from eating at its lunch counter.
“I talked about affordable housing for the poor and bringing water to minority sections of the town, a lot of things,” Fortes told the Globe in a 1995 interview. “If I had something to say, I said it. I wouldn’t stay quiet.”
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The community has taken note of her work. The beach she refused to leave was renamed in her honor in 2004. But as Fortes fought racism, she acknowledged she carried the pain it wrought.
“To think it was segregation that I had to get it under,” she said of the beach honor. “It hurts a little bit.”
Proponents of the mural said it is critical that the region do more to recognize residents who belong to indigenous communities or communities of color. Barnstable County, which spans the length of the Cape, has a greater proportion of white residents than the state as a whole, according to US Census data. Nearly 86 percent of the county’s roughly 196,000 people are white, while statewide, white residents make up about 70 percent of the population.
Plans for the mural began to take shape early last year, after The Arts & Justice Collective received a $30,000 grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts, with about $13,000 set aside for the mural, according to George. They selected Fortes based on community feedback on the proposed mural.
The proposed location, in an alleyway between Main Street and the North Street parking lot, would feature Fortes’s portrait and include design elements tying it to the Cape’s history: feathers representing the Wampanoag Tribe, beach flowers, a pattern from a quilt made by Fortes, and butterflies to represent transformation and hope, according to the project’s filings.
Town officials, in the series of meetings about the mural in the summer and fall, delved into critiques over its style, imagery, subject matter, the location.
At one point, the mural’s design incorporated a quote attributed to poet Dinos Christianopoulos: “They didn’t know we were seeds.” Some commission members raised concerned about the line, questioning whether it would be linked to national controversies over immigration.
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“We don’t want to be political,” said the board’s chairperson, Cheryl Powell, during the Oct. 2 meeting.
The quote was ultimately changed to a line spoken by Fortes, which read in part: “Twas me and my conscience and my heart.”
On Oct. 16, the commission voted on two iterations of the mural. But the number of abstentions, including Doherty, during the vote meant the project wasn’t allowed to move forward.
Among those supporting the mural proposal is Fortes’s nephew, Robert Cutts of Bourne.
“People know she did good,” he said.
Fortes herself suggested that in times of difficulty, she would find ways to keep up her spirits. In the 1995 Globe interview, she recalled her friend, the future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.
“He used to say, ‘Jennie, we can’t cry, we gotta laugh,’“ Fortes said. “And we laughed a lot.”
John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com.
