The Good Fight
A new mural honors alumna and civil rights activist Laura Banks-Reed.
Photo: Chris Richards
A new mural, housed in the lobby of the YWCA on Tucson’s west side, has immortalized the life’s work of alumna Laura Banks-Reed ’43 ’66 ’70 ’81. Banks-Reed was a native Tucsonan and civil rights activist who helped change public education in southern Arizona.
The mural was commissioned by the Tucson YWCA, which will create the Dr. Laura Banks-Reed Center for Gender and Racial Equity program in her honor. It was designed and created by alumna Jessica Gonzales ’12, a local muralist awarded the Social Justice in the Arts Award by the YWCA for her work on the mural.
Gonzales says incorporating aspects of Banks-Reed’s life work as an activist and advocate for people of color and women into the mural was her main inspiration.
Jennifer O’Neill, a YWCA board member, says she believes the mural will help future generations pick up where others have left off.