By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

July, 14, 2015 -- Undeterred by the City’s de-funding of the anti-gang group he founded in the Santa Monica’s Pico  neighborhood, activist Oscar de la Torre is ramping up another campaign aimed at City Hall: A historic mural there that depicts  Spanish Conquistadors standing over kneeling indigenous peoples.

De la Torre, head of the Pico Youth and Family Center, has called the mural Santa Monica’s “Confederate flag” and a symbol of racism that has no place in a “liberal city like Santa Monica,” he said.

De la Torre and his supporters -- including members of the American Indian Movement -- plan to hold a protest march to City Hall next month to demand that the mural be removed.

Opponents of the mural will also take on the general issue of racism as well, he said.

“This city needs to raise its awareness,” said de la Torre, who is also a board member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. “Some people just aren’t aware of it and some want to close their eyes to it. But we can no longer do that. Racism is a life and death issue.”

Not everyone agrees with de la Torre’s interpretation of the mural by Santa Monica-born artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright that has decorated the west wall in the City Hall foyer since the historic building’s completion in 1938-39. 

Ruthann Lehrer of the Santa Monica Conservancy says that the mural -- which depicts Native Americans, a Spanish friar and two Conquistadors together at a stream -- is, in fact, an apolitical rendering of the naming of the City.

De la Torre bristles at that defense of the mural. The mural, he said, is representative of “a historic act of genocide.”

“The fact that that can’t be seen, for me that is a problem.”

De la Torre has said the mural is Santa Monica’s parallel to the Confederate flag. “We hear the same arguments coming out of South Carolina with the Confederate flag.”

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley last Thursday signed legislation that will remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds, acting in the emotional aftermath of the gunning down of nine black churchgoers at a church in Charleston on June 17.