Yesterday I Dared to Struggle. Today I Dare To Win

  • The diverse community on Graham Avenue has a great sense of pride in its ancestry. The neighborhood continues these traditions through music, food, dance and festivals.
  • Each portrait envisions the young women artists in ten years. They designed their outfits to represent their future careers and worked on the portraiture and poses.
  • The section next to the kitchen celebrates the community’s support of its young women. The imagery hints at a girl’s Quinceañera party.
  • Three generations cook with spices and ingredients, such as sofrito. This scene represents the importance of family, stories, and traditions.
  • Doctor, wedding dress maker, founder of Baruch College, and vendors in the Moore Street market.
  • It was empowering for the girls to not only connect themselves to a larger community, but to envision themselves as adults contributing to the world.

Project Description

The diverse community living on Graham Avenue, known locally as Avenue of Puerto Rico, is comprised of Latino, African American, and Caribbean peoples. “Yesterday I Dared to Struggle. Today I Dare To Win,” created through Groundswell’s Voices Her’d Visionaries program, represents this community in four sections. The first is entitled “Portraits of a Remarkable Future” and features portraits of each Voices Her’d participant towering above a city skyline, dressed to show what they want to be in ten years. Together, the remaining three sections tell the story of one family. The story begins with a large red window which frames a scene of pepper fields filled with women. A tree breaks through its borders and enters a kitchen, where the peppers become a wallpaper motif. A grandmother, mother, and daughter cook side by side. In the final section, a crowd holds candles, representing the young artists’ support and inspiration. The crowd includes women that the Voices Her'd group wrote about as their personal role models and individuals from the neighborhood who have served the community for over fifty years. They are the strength and hope for future generations.

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Project Info

Location: Graham Avenue and Cook Street Brooklyn, NY 11206

Fun Facts

Legend Symbol
The bridge. Behind the women is a window to the Williamsburg Bridge, honoring the family’s immigration journey to the United States.
Question about the Mural
Members of the Voices Her’d team envisioned their future selves in "“Portraits of a Remarkable Future.” Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Fun Fact
Quinceañera is a girl’s (and, in more recent years, boy’s) fifteenth birthday. It is considered an important rite of passage in many Latino cultures.