The Difference That Matters

NAU Professor Paints Flagstaff’s Diverse History on Southside Mural

Community engagement is a trait ethnic studies professor Ricardo Guthrie encourages in his students—not only through lecture, but through example. Guthrie has served as a liaison between the Ethnic Studies Program and the Flagstaff community since he began at Northern Arizona University in 2008.

“My work bridges ethnic studies instruction and community building,” Guthrie says, “Concretely, that means using courses, classrooms, faculty, and staff to address community concerns and civic engagement in day-to-day, rather than abstract, philosophical, or politically-restrictive activities.” 

His aim of melding ethnic studies theory with real-life issues is seen in his recent role as chief designer and painter of the new mural on the west-facing wall of the Murdoch Community Center. The mural is meant to depict the history of Flagstaff’s Southside neighborhood, which sits adjacent to campus and houses a wide diversity of ethnicities and generations, including students.

“The Southside neighborhoods have historically been Flagstaff’s more racially and ethnically diverse,” Guthrie says, “and they still are, precisely because of the continuing legacy of segregation—which restricted African American, Mexican American, and Latino sawmill and railroad workers to living below Route 66 during most of Flagstaff’s history. Yet it was the most vibrant part of the city during segregation because the restaurants, night clubs, entertainment, housing, and jobs were most plentiful, and most open to all races and ethnicities.”

The benefits of the mural to the Southside community are clear, but, according to Guthrie, it is advantageous to the university community as well. Partnerships between campus and the community, he says, are crucial to communicating the heart of ethnic studies, because community resources provide the best opportunity to demonstrate what ethnic studies means to groups that are unfamiliar.

“Ethnic studies depends on the type of invigoration and engagement with community people,” Guthrie says. “This project shows what can be done with the proper collaboration between the campus and the community."

The mural project is just one of many examples of what good can come when the university community and Flagstaff community join forces. 

“Part of what ethnic studies is about is trying to elevate our community partners—the Murdoch Community Center, the Southside Community Association, Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, etc.,” Guthrie says. “From the first year of its creation in 2000, the university’s Ethnic Studies Program has worked with community partners to collaborate on programs and projects.” 

The Cleo Murdoch Community Center is perhaps the most obvious physical symbol for the strong ties between the Ethnic Studies Department and the community. Built on the site of the Dunbar Elementary School—Flagstaff’s segregated school for African Americans from 1926 to 1954—the Murdoch was named after a former Dunbar principal, and in 2008 was resurrected as a community center. 

Today, the Center serves as a community hub for various organizations. When Guthrie was recruited to the university in 2008, Deb Harris, Associate Dean of Students and President of the Southside Community Association, invited him to be the featured artist for the Center’s initial participation in First Friday Artwalk—a monthly event where art galleries and businesses invite the public to enjoy featured art exhibitions.

“The Ethnic Studies Program has been a true partner to the Murdoch and Southside community,” Harris said. “And we are lucky to have Ricardo on this project."

Guthrie has since become an instrumental part of the Center as a scholar-activist and sees participating in the historical mural project as a natural part of his position as an interdisciplinary ethnic studies scholar—a discipline born from the civil rights movement to transmit the stories, struggles, and triumphs of African Americans, Chicano/Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.

“The thing about ethnic studies,” Guthrie says, “is that a multidisciplinary approach ensures that every aspect of a person’s abilities is brought to the fore. If you say you’re an ethnic studies person, you have to use everything that’s available to you—artistic skills, historical skills, people skills—in order to teach the subject."

In addition to his community activism, in the classroom, Guthrie encourages his students to bridge their academic and social worlds, which, according to Guthrie, the Ethnic Studies Program views as the proper role of higher education, the university, and the larger communities beyond the campus.

“I use the Southside’s history as an ongoing example of the legacies of segregation and community engagement,” Guthrie says. “Students in some of my classes are required to produce a community history project on the Southside that can be presented for Black History Month or community meetings. They are offered internships, research opportunities, and training in community-based organizations—not just as volunteers, but as members of the community, and future workers in community-based organizations." 

The faces of the Southside mural project 

The five individuals visible on the mural were chosen for their important roles as national and local civic leaders who facilitated racial healing and community achievement. 

• Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet laureate for African Americans in the early 1900s.  
• Wilson Riles, principal of Dunbar School and, later, the first African American to hold statewide office in California.
• Tildy Johnson, an instructor at the Dunbar School and later at South Beaver School.
• Katherine Hickman, a longtime Flagstaff community activist.
• Joan Dorsey, a Flagstaff resident and the first African American stewardess for a major airline.