Louisville is a wonderful city for many reasons: the arts, the food scene, the college sports, the lifestyle, the diversity. It's a progressive city in a conservative state, and has become more and more cosmopolitan in its cultural and ethnic makeup. For example, we have a number of mosques in the city, and they have existed without incident in our "Compassionate City."
Until last week.
On Wednesday the 17th, when the members gathered for evening prayers, they discovered that someone had vandalized the outside of the building with red spray paint.
The city was shocked. Vandalism like this is unusual in The Ville. But what happened next showed that hate can be overcome with compassion and caring.
As soon as the story broke, leaders across the city, both secular and religious, denounced the vandalism. The mayor, Greg Fischer, took the lead, posting on Twitter:
When the Mayor held his press conference later on Wednesday, he challenged the city to take a stand against the hate expressed by the perpetrators by coming out to paint over the vandalism. The paint-over was scheduled for 3 PM on Friday, just two days later.
And the city came. By the hundreds.
Here's a video showing the Mayor speaking, followed by scenes of the painting and other activities:
Courier-Journal video
There are many more things to share about this experience for the city, but I'll close by noting that as part of the cleanup on Friday, a group called Compassion Louisville placed and dedicated a Compassion Bench at the mosque. It was the perfect cap to the day.