Meet 3-Year-Old Lovie, Muralist Michael Rosato Behind That Viral Photo Of A Harriet Tubman Mural
DORCHESTER COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) — A new mural featuring an iconic image of Harriet Tubman has just been finished and it's getting national attention.
There's a story within the story of why this mural makes so many people emotional- including a little girl whose reaction went viral online when she first saw it.
The eyes are the first thing someone sees when they meet another person- whether it be for the first time or the last.
When Harriet Tubman stares at someone when they walk behind the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, Md., they can't help but look right back.
The mural was commissioned by the Dorchester Center for the Arts for the 50th anniversary of the Maryland State Arts Council.
When artist Michael Rosato met with the council and Alpha Genesis CDC, it was important for him to capture the essence of the woman who led slaves to freedom from the Underground Railroad back in the 1850s.
Heartwarming Photo Of Little Girl Touching Harriet Tubman Mural In Maryland
"The story inside there is about the enslaved. The story outside is the viewer engaging and I wanted to make the painting accessible to anybody that looked at it. I wanted everybody who looked at it to interact with it someway," Rosato said.
Three-year-old Lovie was captured in Tammy Lyndee's picture that went viral on social media.
"Everybody needs to know their history and where we come from and how things have gotten better and how they can get better," said Lyndee, Lovie's grandmother.
The image may have been completed in 2019, but it extends back more than a century to a time people like Harriet Tubman struggled for every single thing they had.
And as strangers walked up one by one snapping pictures of their own, one can't help but wonder what Tubman would say if she saw this mural now.
"She would definitely say you and I have found an answer for the situation the United States was in," A visitor said.
The picture of Lovie touching the mural has over 20,000 shares on Facebook. The museum is also the site of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad conference coming up on May 31.
