A decade after his death, statue will honor Tacoma teen who made Eastside center possible
For Shalisa Hayes, it was a day long in the making.
On Monday, she arrived at a place she knows all too well: the Eastside Community Center. Roughly a decade had passed since her son, Billy Ray Shirley III, was shot and killed at an after-hours party in Nalley Valley. Now, three years after the successful opening of the $32 million community center his tragic death helped to inspire, it was time to add the finishing touch.
Standing 6 feet tall and cast in bronze, a statue of her son was waiting for her. For years to come, the sculpture will now greet anyone who enters the Eastside Community Center — and those on their way out the door — with a message and personal mantra that in many ways defined Billy Ray’s spirit: “You’ve got this.”
It was the realization of a moment Hayes had envisioned many times before. What she saw didn’t surprise her, she said, since she and her family had worked with artist Jasmine Iona Brown since 2018 to make sure every detail of the statue was just right, down to the way Billy Ray’s shoes were tied.
Still, the magnitude of the moment wasn’t lost on her.
“It was a sigh of relief, and I was also just very happy with the final product. I was always very adamant that I didn’t care how long it took, as long as it was done right,” Hayes said of her reaction. ”This is a place for those kids who need a village, if you will. And this statue speaks to those kids. It’s important that when kids walk through that building, they see themselves in him. That’s what we’re trying to convey: dream big, work hard, you got this, and you have the village here to support you.”
At a remarkable facility that took years of hard work, grassroots support and fundraising to turn into a reality, a piece of art — which will officially be unveiled to the public during an 11 a.m. ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 23 — might seem easy to overlook. But not this statue. Shirley’s death — and his mother’s unfathomable loss — didn’t just make the Eastside Community Center possible. His spirit lives on in everything that happens here, and every life the community center changes for the better.
According to Antonio McLemore, who lives on the Eastside and has worked as a supervisor at the community center since earlier this year, the statue — and the message it’s designed to send — embodies the transformative work Metro Parks Tacoma endeavors to do on the Eastside. It was never just about opening a shiny new building, he says. It’s about listening to the community and then delivering the programming and support it deserves.
The statue — which was cast at Tacoma’s Two Ravens Foundry — is a fitting tribute to Billy Ray, McLemore said.
It will also serve as a constant reminder of the purpose the Eastside Community Center serves, he indicated.
“If you’re from the Eastside, you were impacted by Billy Ray’s life and the tragedy around it, but you were also impacted by what his mother has done in response. That’s the beauty of the Eastside: our resilience. I don’t think our character is defined by when we’re hit. It’s how we respond after being hit,” McLemore said. “(The statue) will create a moment every single day when someone passes through those doors when … Billy Ray’s story will collide with their own story.”
Brown is a visual artist with a background in public art who lives nearby at the Tacoma Housing Authority Salishan development. With a teenager at home and having previously suffered through painful personal losses of her own, she said the project resonated with her. While her previous work has been shown in places like the Wing Luke Museum, Brown is perhaps best known locally for a series of life size portraits known as “Black Teen Wearing Hoodie,” which she crafted in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin and were subjected to repeated acts of vandalism in Seattle.
As a mother, the pain and grief Hayes has been forced to endure was never far from her mind, Brown said. When she was working on the statue, she even used her own son’s hands to help bring the bronze recreation of Billy Ray’s to life.
“I hope people will see themselves (in the statue), and not just the tragic side of Billy Ray’s story, but the fact that he had this vision for a community center in his neighborhood,” Brown said.
On Tuesday, Hayes said that the statue’s official unveiling later this week isn’t the end of the story or her son’s legacy. She regularly visits the Eastside Community Center to help make sure the facility delivers on the promises made to the community over the last decade, she said, and — just as important to her — that the young man who helped make it possible isn’t forgotten.
The bronze likeness of Billy Ray will help ensure it, she believes.
It won’t bring closure, she said, but it will remind everyone who comes and goes from the Eastside Community Center of why it exists and what’s at stake.
“We’ve spent so many years talking about Billy Ray’s death and his dream that we haven’t really spent a lot of time speaking about his life,” Hayes said. “I think the community center — in my eyes — is really for all the little Billy Rays of Tacoma.”
“It’s been a long time, but (the statue) was well worth the wait,” she added.
This story was originally published October 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
