renée ater onuments help individuals The commission and creation of the African Remembering and Commemorating and communities remember the past American Civil War Memorial (1998) in Washing- and preserve important historical events, ton, dc (fig. 1), offer insights into both monument the United States Colored Troops: heroes, personal or collective triumphs, building and shared remembrance and commemora- even moments of conflict. Marking the landscape in tion in relation to public space. As an active “site of The African American Civil War Memorial highly M visible ways, monuments are located in front of memory,” this memorial sought to rectify the nation’s civic buildings, in town squares, in plazas and parks, failure to recognize African American participation in Washington, dc in cemeteries and memorial gardens, and in specially in the American Civil War and to encourage visitors designated areas set aside for remembrance and trib- to extract new meaning from the past.2 It now stands ute. People visit such spaces for private reflection in the nation’s capital as a significant commemoration and or public commemoration. Monuments can offer of the Civil War, acknowledging the active participa- • redemption, recognition, pride, and belonging. tion of African American men in restoring the nation. But the past sometimes meets the present uneasily, It also relates to other Civil War monuments in reflecting varied interpretations of whose history Washington, dc — including three equestrian statues matters. Thus public monuments can also arouse arrayed along Vermont Avenue and Thomas Ball’s intense anger, feelings of exclusion, as well as dissen- Freedmen’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln (The Emancipation “ This was the biggest thing sion among communities, local governments, and Group) (1876) on Capitol Hill. And while the African special interest groups. People throw paint on monu- American Civil War Memorial took some inspiration ments, scribble graffiti across their surfaces, physically from Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Memorial to Robert that ever happened in my life. destroy them, attempt to reroute mainstream narra- Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (1897), one tives, hold protest rallies to call attention to omissions of the preeminent monuments of the Civil War (see and distortions of the past and present. p. xx, fig. xx; pl. xx), it also gave the artist who created I felt like a man with a uniform on Many monuments force public conversations it a chance to rethink the content and interpretation about what is important to communities and to the put forward a century before. The resulting memorial and a gun in my hand.” nation. They galvanize public opinion in unpredict- places African American men at the forefront of the able ways. They are not static: each individual, story of American freedom, recognizes their contri- —elijah marrs, 1885 neighborhood, and new generation encounters and butions to the young nation, and highlights their interprets the meaning in ways that are as fluid as presence, commitment, and strength. It gives material time and space. Although people may become desen- witness to the real names and units of the United sitized to the significance of monuments in their States Colored Troops and represents their bravery daily lives, those who build them often start from and loyalty despite the trauma of slavery, racism, and a storehouse of deep emotion and want to celebrate the denigration of black manhood during the nine- or correct some aspect of history — glorifying or teenth century. reinventing the past, or revealing a part of it that Significantly, the architects and design committee has remained unacknowledged.1 chose to place the African American Civil War Memo- 4 5 ater • Remembering and Commemorating Fig. 1 The African rial outside the monumental core of the National generation of youth, and help to revive the U Street American Civil War 4 Memorial, with The Mall (fig. 2). Located at the convergence of Vermont corridor.” The United States Senate and House of Spirit of Freedom, Avenue with 10th and U Streets nw, the new memo- Representatives passed Joint Resolution 320 on 1998, Washington, DC rial occupies an extended, triangular urban space, October 14, 1992, authorizing the government of the Fig. 2 Map of Wash- which is landscaped on the east side and adjacent to District of Columbia “to establish a memorial on Fed- ington, DC, showing the African American the historic Prince Hall Masonic Temple on the west. eral land in the District of Columbia or its environs Civil War Memorial The plaza is composed of rose and gray granite, laid to honor African-Americans who served with Union in relation to other monuments in the out in an array of squares and rectangles that are forces during the Civil War.” No federal funds were nation’s capital bisected by angled lines that form a regular pattern allocated for the project, and the public law stated of large isosceles triangles. At the center of the plaza clearly that the government of the District of Colum- and resting on a two-foot-high granite base, the nine- bia was “solely responsible for payment, from official foot-tall bronze Spirit of Freedom depicts three Afri- funds or charitable donations.” 5 can American infantrymen and one sailor. On the Under the leadership of Frank Smith Jr., then a reverse of the semicircular sculpture, a multigenera- Ward 1 city councilman, the African American Civil tional family gathers around a soldier who stands War Memorial Freedom Foundation was formed ready to depart for war. Etched on the surface of the in 1992 to raise the necessary monies to realize the granite base are the words, “Civil War to Civil Rights memorial. In partnership with the Washington Metro- and Beyond.” A series of four curved and progres- politan Area Transit Authority, the dc Commission sively higher granite walls form a mirroring semicir- on the Arts and Humanities, the National Planning cular niche immediately behind the sculpture. On Commission, the National Park Service, and the this composite “Wall of Honor,” 157 burnished stain- National Archives and Records Administration, the less steel plaques are engraved with the names of foundation eventually raised $2.6 million from public more than two hundred thousand African American and private sources to landscape the site, construct soldiers and sailors as well as their white officers. the Wall of Honor, and commission Spirit of Freedom.6 Carved near the top of the outermost wall are the Washington architects Paul S. Devrouax and words of Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century Edward D. Dunson Jr. designed the site for the Afri- abolitionist: “Who would be free themselves must strike can American Civil War Memorial, transforming the blow. Better even die free than to live slaves.”3 the unwieldy triangular site in front of the U Street / Cardoza Metrorail station into a broad and attractive plaza for commemorative activities and community envisioning the memorial gatherings. They set the two-toned plaza back from On July 2, 1991, the Council of the District of the street and Metrorail station and placed the semi- Columbia passed a resolution that endorsed the cre- circular niche at the narrowest point of the triangle ation of an African American Civil War Memorial. A to allow easy access and direct engagement with the month later Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton Wall of Honor and Spirit of Freedom. And they speci- presented a resolution in the House of Representa- fied crepe myrtle trees and plantings at the corner tives to authorize the government of the District of of U Street and along Vermont Avenue to provide Columbia to establish a memorial to honor African greenery at a busy city intersection. American soldiers of the Union army in the Civil With its long side parallel to Vermont Avenue, FPO War. At a meeting on August 8, 1991, city politicians, the memorial lines up with three significant Civil educators, and black leaders envisioned the memorial War bronze equestrian monuments in the city: Major as “a way to claim the black soldier’s rightful place in General John A. Logan (1901) at Logan Circle; Major American history, provide inspiration for a new General George Henry Thomas (1876) at Thomas 6 7 ater • Remembering and Commemorating Fig. 3 Detail of the neighborhood shifted from a mostly rural area to a that would be appropriate for the memorial. They “Wall of Honor” from the African American thriving urban core. Several Union army camps and commented that your work displayed a profound Civil War Memorial hospitals were located there, including Camp Barker, unity in placing representatives from the armed with quotation from Frederick Douglass Wisewell Barracks and Hospital, and Campbell forces on the outer side of the semicircle, essentially Hospital, which attracted formerly enslaved men and protecting a family on the inner circle. The selection women (contrabands) who sought shelter and safety committee agreed that this conveys the sense that within the city’s boundaries. 10 During the late nine- they ‘were fighting for the protection of their families teenth and early twentieth centuries, the area became from the slave trade, unjust treatment, and equal pro- a thriving center for African American intellectual, tection under the law.’” The commission specifically cultural, and civic life. The neighborhood’s name, commented on the style of Hamilton’s design as well, adopted in the 1960s, derived from the local junior saying: “your proposed work goes beyond many