Neighbors Divided Over Mural : Art: Planned work depicting Black Panthers draws vastly different reactions on the street. City Council today will consider relocating it.

Depending on which of the two barber shops on the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and 11th Avenue you enter, you will hear a different opinion on a planned mural celebrating the Black Panthers that would adorn the wall they share.

At Hair Expressions, the newer, hipper salon, owner Moe Maccanico defends the mural, which would depict a gun-toting Huey Newton in addition to scenes of Panthers fighting the Ku Klux Klan and helping feed young people.

“When you tell the truth, tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and when you paint a picture, don’t leave anything out,” said Maccanico, 34. He argued that the Panthers are an important part of black history, and that guns are an important part of the Panthers. “If you painted a picture of Daniel Boone, he’d have a rifle in his hand.”

But next door in Johnson’s Barber Shop, 62-year-old Calvin Johnson has a vastly different perspective. “They can put up things much nicer than that,” said Johnson, who believes that the Panthers are used by racists to discredit blacks. “I never did have any liking for this.”

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The barber vs. barber split is echoed on the streets of this mostly residential neighborhood near the Crenshaw district and in the corridors of City Hall, where the proposed mural--called “To Protect and Serve”--has been under fire.

The mural was originally to have been partly funded with city money, but the organization sponsoring the work, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, rescinded its request Wednesday in the wake of what it called intimidation from police and city officials, a charge both vehemently denied.

The City Council will consider a motion today by Councilman Nate Holden, who represents the neighborhood, recommending that the work be moved. Holden has argued that putting up the mural would be like “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” in a neighborhood he says is plagued by violence. He says the community opposes the work.

Not inside Hair Expressions, though. “We see guns on TV, and with Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said Kimberly Johnson, 29, as she gave Kimberly Armstrong a trim. If Hollywood can do it, she said, why not Crenshaw? “This is about the community.”

“I don’t see the big deal of putting a mural on a wall,” said Kimberly Armstrong, 27, “if the KKK can walk down the street and say it’s their freedom of expression.”

Most residents said that their neighborhood may have its share of gang trouble, but on the whole it is a safe and friendly place, where they are proud to know the names of even the local panhandlers.

Across the street from Hair Expressions, at Val’s Cafe, owner Valerie Curtis was worried about the neighborhood’s image being tarnished by the proposed mural. She would prefer a mural that celebrated lesser-known--and less violent--heroes. “There are too many people who were raised in this area who’ve done something and who we don’t even know about,” she said.

Still others, such as Altair Bey, who lives a few houses down from the proposed site, said they had not even heard of the controversy until Thursday.

“The Black Panthers? That’s so old, it’s like, who cares?” said Bey, 50. But he liked the idea less and less the more he heard about it. “That concept doesn’t fit with the times. Huey Newton with a gun? Maybe Huey Newton with a book in a scholarly pose,” he suggested, adding that he would rather see W.E.B DuBois or Adam Clayton Powell on a mural than Newton. “Right now, people are just trying to live and prosper.”