AUSTIN, Texas — A once-prominent mural of late labor leader Cesar Chavez has been removed from an East Austin building, sparking disappointment among the artists and community members who helped create it.
The mural, which had been on the building since 2023, was painted over as part of a broader effort to distance the property from the Hispanic civil rights leader after multiple sexual abuse allegations were made against him.
“We grew up looking at murals in East Austin. Everywhere you turned, every wall you saw, it was a symbol of our culture,” said Bertha Rendon Ortiz, founder of Arte Texas, the organization that painted the mural…