Brooklyn artist Kenny Altidor is at it again, bringing a Black hero back to life for the community.
Altidor unveiled his mural Saturday of the late actor Chadwick Boseman to “inspire the community to achieve greatness.”
A resident of Canarsie, Altidor has been busy, recently completing a mural of deceased rapper Pop Smoke in Canarsie and before that, George Floyd who was killed with a knee to the neck by a Minnesota cop in May – sparking ongoing protests throughout the country.
Altidor unveiled his rendition of Boseman, a Black community hero best known for his starring role as “Black Panther,” over the weekend. The mural, on the wall of Family Altagracia Carribean Food on Clarendon Road and East 56th Street, gained wide praise from the East Flatbush community.
“A guy called me from the Haitian restaurant and said he had a wall for me, and I was looking for a spot,” Altidor said. “Boseman is like a role model to me and the kids in the community – like Spiderman, Batman, Ironman – they are all white people. He’s the one Black guy who actually became an African American superhero.”
Boseman died earlier this month at the age of 43 after a long battle with colon cancer. He filmed some of his best movies while suffering from the disease — something which Altidor appreciated.
“It showed excellence and Black power, well beyond fighting bad guys,” Altidor said. “He was more like a Barack Obama to African American people – a good role model. He played important roles like Jackie Robinson in ’42,’ a judge in ‘Thurgood,’ and more recently ’21 Bridges’ in which he plays a crusading police detective battling corrupt cops. Even when he was sick, he was out the mentoring people and even though he died at age 43, in that little time, he became a superhero, but not just for African Americans, but for everyone. So inspiring.”
His next project will be a mural of recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said he is looking for an appropriate location – possibly in Crown Heights in a Jewish community.
Altidor has painted murals of deceased police officers and firefighters in the past and has gain notoriety city-wide for his inspiring depictions.
