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Abstract
Public art, such as graffiti, street art and murals are powerful vessels of ontological expression that allow nuanced and contextual ideas to be communicated to and about the communities that they exist within. Charlotte (NC) has emerged as a worthy site for analyzing such artifacts, namely, instances of public art that represent the experiences of the Black community. With an emphasis on visual rhetoric, public advocacy, and public memory, this thesis project seeks to better understand the ways that social movement groups, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as localized communities, use visual rhetoric to both highlight the experiences of the Black community, while also helping to form and arrange public memory of historic events in Black history. Through the analysis of the BLM mural on Tryon Street, a mural by artist Abel Jackson titled Brooklyn Memories, as well as an untitled mural by Alex DeLarge, I explore the various ways that these works of public art help to advocate for the social issues and concerns, and intersectional identities of the Black community, while also understanding how these works of art help to form public memory of the past and present communities who live in Charlotte (NC).