By TJ
WSHS students, staff and school board member Jim Schul admire Kopperud’s mural.
WINONA, Minn. — A new mural painted by a student at Winona Senior High School will encourage those who look at it to “not be ashamed of who they are.”
The acrylic painting, done by WSHS junior Julia Kopperud, features Marsha P. Johnson, a prominent figure in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. She was a transgender African-American activist and played a significant role in the LGBTQ+ community in the 1960s and 1970s. In the painting, Johnson is set against a brick wall, which pays tribute to the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in which the Stonewell riots first began. The mural also features a quote from Johnson’s close friend and fellow activist Sylvia Rivera: “We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.”