His stare is impossible to pass without locking eyes. That was likely the point.

The mural at the corner of Presbury and Mount streets in Sandtown-Winchester depicts a close-up of Freddie Gray’s face. The 25-year-old is flanked by protesters — one group led by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1965 marches in Alabama, the other by activists during the Uprising, the local protest movement after Gray’s arrest by Baltimore police led to his death.

The triptych in West Baltimore garnered international attention but was just one of countless responses from the city’s arts community following Gray’s death, 10 years ago this month. For many in Baltimore and around the country, the Uprising felt like the culmination of decades of long-simmering tensions between the police and Black Americans.

Artists, as they always do, employed their talents to express the myriad emotions that cannot be summed up solely by words.

“Art is not what you see but what you make others see,” the French impressionist Edgar Degas famously said. This is a look at just some of the art born from Gray’s death and the Uprising — and the continued work that refuses to let us forget.

Murals and visual arts

A number of artists left lasting marks on Baltimore’s streets, including through the Eubie Blake: Sandtown Mural Project, curated by Ernest Shaw and Nether, who declined to be interviewed for this story.

There’s Gray’s name, painted on a sky blue backdrop adorned with a halo and angel wings, on the side of the Gilmor Homes apartment building where Gray was arrested. Nearby is a mural that reads “The Power of the People,” with its messages of “Rest in Peace Freddie ‘Pepper’ Gray” and “Seek Knowledge.”

Other visual artists displayed their work outside to ensure that the public paid attention, like veteran mosaicist Loring Cornish, who hung Black baby dolls from a tree on Parkwood Avenue next to a sign that read: “Lynching still exists, white police use bullets and law to lynch blacks legally.”

Artists from outside Baltimore felt compelled to make their own statements. Steve Locke of Hudson, New York, used photographs of Gray — a family photo, an image of his arrest and Gray in the hospital on life support — to create large monochromes that were installed on the facade of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum from June 2018 to January 2019.

“Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie” was a site for mourning and healing while showing the abstract progression of his life to death. Years later, Locke says he intended to make a work about Gray’s “erasure” at the hands of police.

“That’s what a memorial is supposed to do,” Locke said. “It’s not just supposed to be a pretty picture. It’s supposed to indict. It’s supposed to accuse. It’s supposed to remind people that this person was lost to us because of the state.”

Music

“Does anybody hear us pray for Michael Brown or Freddie Gray?” Prince sang to the crowd at then-Royal Farms Arena in May 2015. One of the last songs he released before his own death, “Baltimore,” was part of the Purple One’s “Rally 4 Peace” concert — his first performance in the city in 14 years.

Though it was announced on short notice, thousands attended, showing up in gray attire at Prince’s request.

While other nationally known artists weighed in — Pusha T (“Sunshine”), Lyfe Jennings (“Baltimore (Tribute Song)”), Kevin Morby (“Beautiful Strangers”) and Kevin Devine (“Freddie Gray Blues”), to name a few — the most resonant songs came from musicians from here.

“Said it before and I’ma say it again, whatcha gonna do when they throw you in the pen?” Joy Postell soulfully sings over an acoustic guitar on “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” Other artists like jazz pianist Lafayette Gilchrist, R&B group Dru Hill and rapper Lor Chris also contributed Gray-inspired tracks.

No song captured the city’s hurt, frustration and resiliency like “No SunShine” by Young Moose and Martina Lynch. “We live in poverty, probably seen some things that could take you out of your normal state and turn you to a fiend or maybe give up your dreams and take you out to the street,” Lynch raps in a verse that followed Young Moose drawing a direct line from Gray to Rodney King and Emmett Till.

In 2016, composer and pianist Judah Adashi founded Rise Bmore, an annual free concert and speaking event in honor of Gray. This year’s event, set for April 19 at 2640 Space, will feature Sanahara Ama Chandra, Brooks Long and more.

Photography

A new exhibit at the Creative Alliance illustrates how the images of the Uprising have only grown more powerful over time.

“In the Wake Of: Resilience and Revolution,” on view through April 19, features photographer Devin Allen’s indelible black-and-white photographs of the Uprising (including his Time magazine cover), powerful portraits of activists five years later by Joseph Giordano and filmmaker Paul Abowd’s documentary footage of Sandtown-Winchester after Gray’s death.

The exhibit is not to retraumatize visitors but rather inspire them by highlighting community members who continue to advocate for safety and development in their neighborhoods through activism, said Joy Davis, Creative Alliance’s visual arts director.

“It’s really to highlight these people who are often seen as smaller players in some cases or forgotten figures even in the short time period of 10 years,” Davis said.

The contributions from Giordano, who has done freelance work for The Banner, go beyond just striking images. He also includes a QR code that leads to reflective interviews with the subjects, including Makayla Gilliam-Price, co-founder of the grassroots organization City Bloc, and Abdul-Jaami O. Salaam of the nonprofit KEYS Empowers.

“I wanted people to look at these people in the eye, one on one, and get their story,” Giordano said, “so that they could relate to a human and not just like, a group shot of people yelling.”

Documentaries

When Kwame Rose went viral for telling then-Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera to “get out of Baltimore City,” the activist expressed how many Baltimoreans felt about the national media seemingly parachuting into their hometown to cover riots rather than Gray’s death.

Some filmmakers took it upon themselves to correct the narrative. Malaika Aminata Clements’ 2015 documentary, “Not About a Riot,” skips voiceover narration in favor of footage of street interviews, marches and even moments of joy, like the release of collectively letting loose to Rod Lee’s Baltimore Club anthem ”Dance My Pain Away.”

HBO’s 2017 documentary “Baltimore Rising,” directed by “The Wire” actress Sonja Sohn, earned strong reviews for centering its story on the fractured relationship between residents and the police.

And there’s more to come. Researcher and painter S. Rasheem is behind the forthcoming “Baltimore Legacy Project,” a seven-part documentary series based on interviews with Black Baltimoreans. The first installment, the Uprising-focused “Baltimore Still Rising,” uses 20 interviews with teachers, community leaders, clergy, elected officials and more. The film will premiere at the Senator Theatre on April 24.

Rasheem believes these first-hand accounts will better serve future generations who are looking to understand Baltimore’s history.

“This is about a city’s fight for justice,” Rasheem said. “These problems don’t happen in a silo. … And one of the things that really came through in talking to so many people is how they worked with each other.”

Writing

It didn’t take long for some of Baltimore’s most prominent writers to weigh in on Gray’s death and the Uprising, from Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic to D. Watkins’ New York Times op-ed “In Baltimore, We’re All Freddie Gray.” The Texas-based nonprofit American Short Fiction also collected thoughts and reactions from local writers.

“Growing up in Baltimore I’ve seen the odds shoot first and ask questions later. I’ve seen the odds shatter Freddie Gray’s voice box and smash his spinal cord,” poet and author Kondwani Fidel wrote in his 2017 essay, “This is Why I Wanna Die Young.”

Fast forward to 2025, and writers are still using their work to document and process the events of a decade ago. On recent Fridays, the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Lexington Market branch has hosted Baltimore Beat journalists and archivists as they gather community stories about the Uprising, which will be digitally archived and featured in the Beat.

And last month, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Choice Program hosted Art Rysing, which brought together the theater company WombWork and the Black Arts District’s poetry program, DewMore Baltimore. The event provided space for young city residents to freely reflect on growing up in the city following the Uprising.

DewMore’s team of five teenage poets spoke about police brutality, the prison system and how little they feel things have changed since Gray’s death, said Keyma Flight, the program’s youth program coordinator. While that reality is disheartening, she said, Art Rysing served as a vital reminder of just how powerful artistic expression can be.

“In these times, art is one of the biggest things we can rely on,” Flight said. “The reality is art is a cushion that allows us to breathe a little easier.”