Chicago murals: Del-Kar Pharmacy mosaic tells North Lawndale history

The mosaic on the entryway of Del-Kar Pharmacy in North Lawndale is a shimmering tribute to the long history of the West Side neighborhood.

Pharmacist Edwin Muldrow owns and operates it. His father Edward Muldrow Jr. previously did. It’s been a neighborhood staple for more than 60 years.

So it was fitting, Muldrow says, that the mosaic installed on his entryway in 2023 reflects that history.

“Let’s pay homage to the neighborhood,” he says. ”Now, we got a story to tell.”

For inspiration, Muldrow pulled out historic images of the store, his parents, once-bustling West 16th Street and the people who frequented it.

On the south side of the corner store, the mosaic shows two women sporting 1970s-style Afros next to a street sign showing the corner of West 16th Street and South Ridgeway Avenue, the drugstore’s location. One woman carries a handbag that reads “Simone’s.” Simone's Cosmetics was a business started by Sammy Davis Jr. that allowed Black women to sell cosmetics door to door, similar to Avon or Mary Kay, Muldrow says.

The west side of the building shows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. reading a newspaper. King lived about a block away, at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave., and bought his daily newspaper at Del-Kar Pharmacy after he and his family moved to Chicago for a year in 1965. A black panther stretches out from the newspaper’s front page — a tribute to the Black Panther Party and its work in North Lawndale. Fred Hampton is at the north end of the west-facing mural. The former head of the Black Panther Party was shot to death in 1969 in a raid by police officers as he slept in his own bed.

To King's left, you see Davis crooning above a tiled image of Del-Kar Pharmacy in the 1970s. Next to the image of the store: Muldrow’s parents Claudine and Edward.

After the figures were added, Muldrow says he thought, "Let’s tie it off with a slogan.” So, emblazoned next to Hampton are the words: “Past Lessons Become Future Blessings.”

Green Star Movement, a nonprofit student arts group, created the mosaic over about nine months in 2023. It was paid for with grants from Ferrara Candy Company and Amazon.

“Green Star's work is deeply rooted in preserving the rich history of our diverse communities, so it was incredibly fulfilling to weave those historic photographs and stories into the mosaic,” says Kamelia Hristeva, Green Star's founder and chief executive officer. “Each image had its own story to tell, and it felt like we were not only creating art but also honoring the legacy of the neighborhood.”

Muldrow says kids who live in the neighborhood ask about the mosaic and the street’s history as a thriving corridor, before the protests and arson that followed King’s assassination in 1968. Many of the North Lawndale buildings that burned were never rebuilt.

Del-Kar Pharmacy was spared in those fires, Muldrow says, protected by members of the Vice Lords street gang, whose headquarters also were in the building.

"You gotta know your neighborhood," Muldrow says. "You don't need to call the police because neighbors police themselves."

His store also serves as a hub of North Lawndale.

"There's so much more that we do than fill prescriptions," he says. "We're the center of the neighborhood."