Today, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a new five-year, $250 million grant effort called the "Monuments Project," which will "transform the way our country's histories are told in public spaces." Grants made under the new initiative will fall under three areas of activity:

• Funding new monuments, memorials, or historic storytelling spaces
• Contextualizing existing monuments or memorials through installations, research, and education
• Relocating existing monuments or memorials

Created in response to the national outcry on racial and social injustice, the Foundation intends to "recalibrate the assumed center of our national narratives to include those who have often been denied historical recognition."

"Monuments, memorials, and other commemorative spaces convey both individual narratives and national values,” said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander in a statement. “They shape the histories of who we are and influence ongoing discussion about which people in our society are considered worth celebrating and remembering. 

"By providing key support to visionary artists and cultural organizations that seek to reimagine how fundamental stories and experiences may be publicly commemorated in new monuments and memorials, this unprecedented Mellon commitment will help inform our collective understanding of our country’s profoundly diverse and weighty history and ensure that those who haven’t been taught this history can learn it in the public square. This effort will further ensure that the many communities that have shaped the United States have greater opportunity to see themselves in the fabric of our remarkable American story."

The first major grant issues under the new Monuments Project will be a three-year, $4 million grant to support Monument Lab in Philadelphia, an independent public art and history studio that works with cities throughout the country to reimagine American public spaces.