In this text, John Weber, a distinguished muralist and co-founder of the Chicago Mural Group, responds to a recent article about murals in Chicago and denies that Chicago’s mural scene is unique. He fears that such a term implies that the scene is isolated, provincial, or eccentric. Instead, Weber contends, the contemporary mural movement in the United States began in Chicago. The mural Wall of Respect had a profound influence and sparked the rebirth of public mural production around the country. Chicago muralists have had fairly regular communications with artists in other cities and have been recognized by artists from Boston to Mexico City to Honolulu as leading the movement. Moreover, Weber considers why the movement began in Chicago. He contends that speculation that it was an “effect” of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the “ . . . ‘elitist’ teaching of its faculty . . . ” seems unfounded, as only three of the eight artists mentioned in this article attended SAIC, and two of those had previously been painting murals in Mexico. Weber argues that a more likely explanation is Chicago’s distance from both New York City’s art scene and the pressures of its marketplace. Other reasons include the continued presence of strong ethnic communities, the small scale of buildings outside of downtown, and the presence of artists dedicated to such work strongly supported by the communities in which they work. These communities fund the projects and often contribute ideas and labor. The big difference between these muralists and those of Mexico, Weber writes, is that the Chicagoan muralists lack corporate and municipal backing for their projects. Though Chicago muralists are “rapidly maturing,” Weber emphasizes that they continue to serve the community, hoping that corporate interests will begin to support them.