“The first of its kind on any of the nation’s statehouse grounds,” this monument was sculptured by Ed Dwight of Colorado and dedicated March 29, 2001. This monument traces African-American history from the Middle Passage, to the fight for freedom in the Civil War, the struggle for civil rights and emergence into mainstream America.
Among the 12 scenes are images that depict a family on the auction block, slaves working in a rice field, men and women celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation, the Jim Crow era, the Northern migration, and images of African Americans today pioneering in such fields as engineering, law education, sports, politics and space exploration. At the base of the monument’s obelisk are four rubbing stones from regions of Africa where slaves were captured – Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Republic of Congo and Ghana.
