painting a mural, but rather about investing in the community in ways that had not been done before. Baca took the lead on the project by interviewing people about their lives, family histories, ancestry, and stories they remembered hearing from their older relatives, as well as consulting history experts. From this, she was able to create the design for the mural. Some of the events portrayed in the mural constituted the first time they had ever been displayed in public, including but not limited to the Dust Bowl Journey, Japanese American internment during World War II, Zoot Suit Riots, and the Freedom Bus Rides. Baca wanted the project to be done by people who were as diverse as those to be painted. Baca states that "I draw on skills not normally used by artists. I've learned as much as I've taught from the youth I've had the good fortune to know by working alongside of them". In this way, although the term artivism had not yet been coined at the time of this project, by focusing on the process and involving the community in creating public art work that shared the histories of marginalized people; Judy Baca was engaging in an artivist project. Working with young people was important for Baca because she noticed that many of them who were involved in gangs were also using graffiti to express themselves and claim territory. Baca felt that muralism was one way to redirect these young people's energy and build community through positive experiences. Even though Baca made a lot of progress in building community with gang involved young people, she struggled with how gendered muraling projects and spaces were. Most of the young people she worked with were young men because as Baca stated "at that time, boys were the only ones parents would allow". But Baca also found that there was hostility towards the idea of women in these public spaces and to feminist ideals in general. Because of this, when it came to the Great Wall of LA project, Baca began to actively work to connect to other feminist artists and to actively recruit young women to participate in her muraling projects. She had people from all different ages and backgrounds participate. Some were scholars and artists, but the majority were just community members. "Making a mural is like a big movie production, it can involve 20 sets of