Freedom Monument Sculpture Park set to open

The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is set to open on 27 March 2024.

The 17-acre site combines historical artefacts, contemporary art, original research, and first-person narratives to explore the history of slavery and the lives of enslaved people.

The Sculpture Park seeks to address a lack of education and honor the millions of people who endured slavery.

The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park joins EJI’s Legacy Sites — the expanded Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

“I believe this will become a special place for millions of people to honor the lives of people who endured tremendous hardship,” said Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative.

“There is a lot to learn at this site and we want everyone to experience it.”

The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park presents many historically significant objects, structures, and totems.

There are replicas of critical structures like rail cars and holding pens to enable a more detailed understanding of the experience.

The site also presents powerful stories of perseverance, hope, and resistance to slavery.

The Sculpture Park also explores the transatlantic slave trade along with the domestic trade in the US.

The National Monument to Freedom stands 43 feet tall and 155 feet long, and marks the culmination of the journey through the Sculpture Park.

Using research from the 1870 Census, which was the first time formerly enslaved Black people were able to formally record a surname, the Monument individually lists over 122,000 surnames that nearly five million Black people adopted at the time.

At EJI’s Visitors Centre, visitors are able to learn more about the counties and states associated with the names of formerly enslaved people.

They can also use the kiosks for genealogical research or trace family histories.

The art collection at the Sculpture Park is a significant narrative collection.

It features newly commissioned works by artists including Charles Gaines, Alison Saar, and Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, alongside sculptures from Simone Leigh, Wangechi Mutu, Rose B. Simpson, Theaster Gates, Kehinde Wiley, and Hank Willis Thomas.

The art works in tandem with historical artefacts.

Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is located on the banks of the Alabama River, bordered by rail lines built by enslaved people.

The River was also home to Indigenous tribes who occupied these lands for centuries before the arrival of Europeans, a history which is acknowledged at the Sculpture Park.

The Alabama River flows through the Black Belt of Alabama and was a center of commerce throughout much of the 19th century.

The Alabama River also has an enduring legacy in Civil Rights history, passing under the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of one of the most significant efforts for voting rights for African Americans. 

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