WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) — A sculptor and visual artist is seeking ideas to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the African Landing in Virginia.
Wednesday night, artist Brian R. Owens and those with Fort Monroe held a meeting at First Baptist Church in Williamsburg for public input. It’s part of a week-long “listening tour” to develop ideas for the African Landing Memorial, which will be placed at Fort Monroe.
“We try to get the temperature of the public and get their thoughts on the sculpture we’re going to make,” Owens said.
Last year, the national monument commemorated 400 years of African American history during the anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving at Fort Monroe.
The memorial will be located at national monument on Fenwick Road near the state marker recognizing the first Africans in Virginia.
Glenn Oder, who is the Fort Monroe Authority executive director, says there is already a permanent memorial — but it’s just a historical marker.
“What we want to do is take that one lone sign and we want to make a space. We have parks at Fort Monroe. We have Continental Park. We have Cannon Park. Why can’t we have African Landing Memorial Park at Fort Monroe as well?” he said.
The idea for the memorial sprouted from Project 1619, a nonprofit founded in 1994 to “help preserve the legacy of the first Africans in English speaking North America,” according to a Fort Monroe Authority news release.
Owens, who has created similar memorials over the last 20 years including the St. Augustine Foot Soldiers sculpture in Florida, says he was relieved to find out he was selected for the project.
The tour has already made stops at public spaces and universities in Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and Richmond.
And, Owens says his ideas have already changed because of hearing others input.
“There’s been a common thread through the entire experience. Yes, we want a faithful depiction of the harm that was done, but we don’t want to stop there,” he said. “We may have to leave somber and thoughtful but we don’t want to leave depressed. We want to leave in a state of mind that leads us to conclude these people had hope as we ourselves have hope for the future.”
Oder says many at the meetings have also wanted to include the spirit that those “Twenty and Odd” Africans who were brought to North America might have displayed.
“They brought with them their skills and their dignity and their intellect and their history. They brought all that with them and that’s what made America today. What’s exciting is to see how many people recognize that. That’s such a significant component. We wouldn’t be who we are today without the ‘twenty and odd.'”
The memorial will not be built for a couple of more years, but they’re hoping to get conceptual designs done later this year, according to Oder.
He hopes that when it is completed, people will walk away truly understanding how significant the landing is in history.
“People need to know the true history of how this country began.”
The tour continues Thursday night, February 27, at the Fort Monroe Visitor’s Center in Hampton at 6 p.m. The address is 30 Ingalls Road.
To see 10 On Your Side’s Kara Dixon’s compilation of the significance of 400th Commemoration, click here. Kara also interviewed descendants of the first Africans brought to Hampton. You can check out that story here.
