Near East Side mural commemorates Columbus’ Uhuru Dance Company history

Poet and former member of the Uhuru Dance Company, Charles "Is Said" Lyons, unveils a mural celebrating the organization's contributions to the community.

The rhythmic actions and the appears of Afro percussions echoed throughout the corner of Taylor Avenue and East Long Road, as Columbus poet Charles “Is Said” Lyons and some others arrived jointly to commemorate an neglected but integral fragment of Columbus background.

The Uhuru Dance Business, an African-based dance group that fashioned on the Ohio Condition University campus in the slide of 1971, celebrated its 50th anniversary Saturday with the placement of an out of doors mural at 1500 E. Very long St., the former household of the  Willis Beauty Provide Retail outlet. 

On the mural, a large tree is rooted at the middle of the out of doors piece, with an graphic of a God-like determine embracing a subject of planetary-formed masses in orbit. And at the heart of the tree’s trunk, a gold-plated plaque is filled with the names of residing and deceased users of Uhuru, which indicates liberty in Swahili, and the phrase “Consider” on the reduce remaining corner of the wall and “Always” in the higher proper.