“CommUNITY, 2020” by muralist Shane Pilster, one of ten artists selected for a public art billboard project designed to promote diversity in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
Photo courtesy of curator Sheila Cuellar-Shaffer and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art
How to Diversify Trump County
New billboard artwork across Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, is seeking to promote diversity and inclusion in an aging county that’s 95% white.
When driving from Pittsburgh to its deep eastern suburbs, you know you’ve arrived in Westmoreland County when you see the farms with the massive Trump campaign displays, some as elaborate as Christmas Nativity yard scenes. Indeed, there is an entire Trump House. The county is reliably Republican and overwhelmingly white — roughly 95% white compared to 2.4% Black and 2.8% “Other.” When Trump alarmed voters that Democrats and socialists were coming to doom the suburbs, this county was the kind of place he envisioned saving. He won it in November with 63.46% of the vote, which was 2 percentage points less than he won it with in 2016.
But Westmoreland County’s roots are actually steeped in both Democratic Party politics and socialism. And while it never matched the Black demographics of nearby Pittsburgh and other Rust Belt metropolises, it was once a place where some Black businesses thrived and where Black families could find sanctuary from the city. With that in mind, today, a new set of signs is in view around the county that signals a return to those more cosmopolitan origins.