The year was 1968. I was 16 years old and it was a bright sunshiny spring day in south central Los Angeles. I was walking down the street on my way home from school when, suddenly, the sound of police car sirens filled the air around me. It sounded as though they were coming right at me. I saw a young Black boy, about my age, riding a motorcycle down the street with the LAPD police department in hot pursuit. A police car pulled up alongside the motorcyclist and bumped the motorcycle and its driver off of the road and it came crashing to the ground. The young Black man got up off the pavement and attempted to run, but I could see that his leg was severely injured from the fall, and he limped a few feet in pain before collapsing on the sidewalk in agony. Several policemen jumped out of their squad cars. One of them rolled the young man over and handcuffed him while the other kept his gun on him. They were then joined by many other Los Angeles Police officers who began to arrive as a crowd of residents gathered to witness the arrest. These police officers got down on their knees on all sides of the young, injured detained young Black man, completely surrounding him to the point that it was hard to see what was going on. Out of curiosity, I moved to try to get a better view of what was happening. What I saw sent a shock through my system. I could see that one of the officers had inserted his club into the young man’s mouth while the other officers, who surrounded him on their knees, beat him with their clubs and fists.

I don’t even know what the pursuit was about, or what this young man had done to be chased and arrested. It did not matter, because all I could see was that this young Black boy was being beaten mercilessly in broad daylight by the police, a public beating, and although the community witnessed it first hand and was upset and yelling at them to stop, they did not stop, nor care. They continued their beating and got away with it.

Remind you of anything? It was the same attitude the officers had who murdered George Floyd. They did it out of hate. They did it because, at that moment, they were all powerful and could do what they wanted to this Black person without repercussion.

It is a mistake to think that this attitude is only applicable to the George Floyd murder by police. This has been the attitude of police in America regarding Black people since the Civil War. It was a code written by white racists during reconstruction, and it has gone unchallenged and unabated since that time.

It wasn’t until what happened to Rodney King that America got a glimpse that something was systemically wrong with the Los Angeles Police Department. Any organization is nothing more than the workers who people it. If you create a culture of racism, that is what the organization will be. It does not matter what your policies are, these people will find a way to subvert them. It does not matter what the law is, they will find a way to twist its meaning to suit their racist opinions and to cover up their evil, vile deeds.

The message to my community on that day, and since then, was that there was no protection under the law in our community for anyone who was Black, and that the police was the most feared and dangerous gang in Los Angeles for people of color.

These are the types of several experiences that I went through as a young man living in south central Los Angeles. We always knew that the police were not our friends and that many of them were looking for an opportunity to be brutal to the Black and Brown citizens they were sworn to protect. We didn’t have cell phones with cameras on them back then. If you complained, it was our word against 10 or 15 police officers, and that meant that you now had a target on your back.

THESE MEMORIES AND THE KILLING OF GEORGE FLOYD GAVE BIRTH TO MY “BLACK LIVES MATTER” WOOD BURNS

It was these memories, and more, that caused me to begin to wood burn the victims of racist violence under the theme of “Black Lives Matter.” It was important to me, a traditional clock painting artist, to capture these images using a completely different medium, and new skill to me, to memorialize these victims. I had never wood burned any image until April 2020. It happened by accident. As a Vietnam combat veteran, I use the arts as personal therapy for myself, and there are several stores from which I buy art supplies to hone my artistic skills. As a result of the current pandemic, I could not find suitable canvases that I usually paint on and convert to clocks, so I decided to try a new form of art: wood burning.

Out of frustration, I decided to check amazon.com to see if I could find my materials and I stumbled upon a wood burning set. At the time, I was creating a wooden staff out of a large tree branch that my neighbor had given me. So, I ordered it. Once I had completed the staff, which turned out beautifully, I might add, I received a birthday gift on May 15, 2020, from my sons Keith and Omar. They knew I had recently purchased a wood burner, and they sent me a package of 12 x 7-inch wood panels and clock motors. The very first image that I burned was that of George Floyd. For me, like many others, the police officer looked like a demon as he had his knee on George Floyd’s neck until he was dead. He seemed void of any humanity whatsoever and exhibited just a purpose, an intent to nullify the life and liberties of George Floyd, because he had the power to do it. I decided that I wanted to capture the humanity of his victim in order to combat the inhumanity that was on full display before the world of that officer.

These wood burns are a statement regarding the unjust actions of police departments, the void of humanity in their ranks, and the hatred of the Black race that has been allowed to grow and fester. How else can we explain the outrageous and blatant murder of George Floyd and others that resulted in public executions?

My wife, Juanita, told me that I had captured that sentiment in my wood-burned images. So, I want you to know that is my goal when I create these “Black Lives Matter” wood burns of victims killed by racists in America, to connect to the humanity inherent in each victim as a reminder of how inhumane it was for their killers to perpetuate such an evil act upon their valuable lives.

I am not sure how many of these I will burn. I plan to burn four series that will contain eight images each, and this is my “BLACK LIVES MATTER” Wood Burn Series #1. Most of my other art consists of hand-painted clocks. I know what you might be thinking, “clocks?” I think a psychologist may someday have a field day trying to explain why I love to paint clocks. I have a story about it, but this is not the time nor place to tell it. You can see my hand-painted clocks by visiting: glenn-towery.squarespace.com. I am probably the only clock artist in the world who paints historically referenced scenes and persons inside a working clock.

I hope that my “BLACK LIVES MATTER” Wood Burn Series becomes a conversation starter and that through these burnings, which are symbolic of the problem, we can find a way to explore the dynamics that have made victims of the beautiful Black people wood burned here. We must find a way to reform and stop the blue/white racists that threaten and terrorize Black people in America. There is hope now. Many white people saw, for the first time, the blue/white racist monster very clearly when they watched George Floyd’s videotaped, televised murder and were outraged. They know now that there is not an imaginary boogey man that people of color have been complaining about. They saw that the blue/white racist monster is real. May the people depicted in my “Black Lives Matter” Wood Burn Series #1 rest in peace, and may we find a way to rid America of all of its blue/white racist monsters.