A new mural in Fort Greene celebrates the life of Michael K. Williams

Artist Sally Rumble unveiled a larger-than-life laughing likeness of the late actor at a block party that celebrated his life with friends and family

By Brooklyn Magazine

Fort Greene, already a neighborhood with a rich tapestry of street art and installations, took the wraps off its newest mural at a block party on South Portland Avenue Saturday. A larger-than-life painting of a laughing Michael K. Williams now beams over the Fulton Street subway stop on the brick wall alongside Moe’s Bar and Lounge.

Next to his face—eyes closed, mouth joyfully agape—is a quote attributed to Williams: “Do me one favor. Don’t be like me. Be better than me. Stand on these shoulders and take it higher.”

Williams, who was found dead of an overdose in his Williamsburg home earlier this month, was a native son. Born in Brooklyn in 1966, he grew up in the Vanderveer Estates housing complex, which is now known as Flatbush Gardens—and was all the more beloved for never having lost touch of his Brooklyn roots despite wild success as an actor in shows such as “The Wire” and “Boardwalk Empire.”

On Saturday, the community celebrated his life.

“As an artist and activist who met Michael in 2012, I wanted to pay my respect via art, since he gave us so much of his,” Sally Rumble, the artist who painted the mural, tells Brooklyn Magazine.

The short block of South Portland between Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street has been home to a series of block parties throughout the summer—organized jointly by Head Sounds Records, a shop on the block, and local deejay Camron da DJ—that have provid a welcome boon to a close knit pandemic-weary community. Saturday’s was special, though. Spanglish Fly, a Latinx boogaloo band, coaxed stoop-sitters onto their feet to dance in the blocked off street. Professional salsa dancers mixed it up with teens. The trumpet player wandered into the crowd.

As Rumble unveiled her mural, local news outlets rolled tape and Williams’ own family paid respects.

“He was spectacular, he loved to dance. Very self-educated,” Williams’ son Karim Anderson, who flew in on Sunday to visit the mural himself, told Rumble in an Instagram interview. Karim says his father taught him that, “even if you work in McDonald’s, be the best McDonald’s worker there was. That’s him all day.”

Photographer Alina Patrick was on the block and caught the following images of a celebration of life.