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Bank of America has awarded a $1 million grant towards the development of the National Juneteenth Museum, designed by BIG. The money will contribute to the project’s estimated $70 million price tag. Located in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood, the museum will serve as an epicenter... View full entry
Davidson College has unveiled its plans for a new memorial to the enslaved and exploited people whose hands built the 186-year-old liberal arts institution. The design effort of the sculpture titled “With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited” will be led by Perkins&Will... View full entry
A new documentary from local filmmaker Erik Duda exploring the process and impact of the University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has been released, providing insights into the creation of one of the most important public monuments in America since the opening of Maya Lin's Vietnam... View full entry
The much-awaited debut of the Moody Nolan and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners-designed International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina, now has an official opening date after the latter announced it will be available to the public for the first time on January 21st... View full entry
Last Friday, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced the development of the Barbados Heritage District with Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye leading its design. The cultural center will be located at Newton Plantation, located just outside the country’s capital Bridgetown. The... View full entry
The London-based research group, Forensic Architecture (FA), published a new project on Monday, June 28, called “Environmental Racism in Death Alley, Louisiana,” which was featured by the New York Times. A short documentary on the Times website tells the story of the fight to identify and... View full entry
Sharon Prince, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Farms Foundation, announced this week Design for Freedom, a new movement to eradicate modern slavery from the built environment by addressing the systemic use of forced labor in the building materials supply chain. "Examining our building... View full entry
While much attention has been paid this summer to the removal of racist monuments to the confederacy, America's legacy of historic plantations continues on as a lucrative, popular, and deeply controversial industry. A transformation has been taking place within some of the organizations and... View full entry
The Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) will no longer use the term "master" to describe the primary bedroom of a home on their housing listings. The term "master" has roots in slavery, and HAR says the topic of removing it from realty terminology has been debated for years.
Now, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) platform that HAR uses for listings, will use "primary bedroom" and "primary bath," HAR said in a statement to CBS News.
— CBS News
"The origin of the terms is debated, and we are not saying they are rooted in slavery. Others didn't personally view them as sexist or racist but believed we should change the terms for anyone else who might find them objectionable. The consensus was that Primary describes the rooms equally as... View full entry
In a statement issued this week, London Metropolitan University announced the decision to rename its Art, Architecture and Design School and remove the name of John Cass, an English merchant who was instrumental in the early development of the slave trade in the late 17th and early 18th century... View full entry
Since 2012, Hill has surveyed hundreds of structures that she believes once served as a home to enslaved African Americans. More often than not, the buildings bear no visible trace of their past; many have been converted into garages, offices, or sometimes—unnervingly—bed-and-breakfasts. In some cases the structures have fallen into ruin or vanished entirely, leaving behind a depression in the ground. — Atlas Obscura
Writing in Atlas Obscura, writer Sabrina Imbler takes an in-depth look at the work of Jobie Hill, the Iowa City architect who started Saving Slave Houses, a project that aims to catalog, document, and ultimately preserve the remaining "living and working environments of enslaved people" in... View full entry
At a time when states are debating the removal of Confederate monuments, Maryland unveiled bronze statues of famed abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass during a ceremony Monday night in the Maryland State House.
The life-sized statues were dedicated during a special joint session of the Maryland General Assembly in the Old House Chamber, the room where slavery was abolished in the state in 1864.
— ABC News
According to ABC News, the statues were dedicated during Black History Month and have been made to show Tubman and Douglass as they would have appeared in age and dress in 1864. Harriet Tubman. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines. Via marylandmatters.org "A mark of true greatness is shining light on a... View full entry
The latest installment of The New York Times' 1619 Project takes a look at the largely erased built legacy of slavery in America. The article visits a collection of sites that had to be uncovered more or less through original research, as little documentation and few historical markers... View full entry
The Chrysler Museum of Art on the University of Virginia campus will put on an exhibit entitled "Thomas Jefferson, Architect: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals." It looks at the Jefferson's influences and ideas around architecture, including displays of... View full entry
“The memorial is a circle, a continuous ring never ending, an opening for people to step inside and contemplate, to learn what slavery was about. For the community, I hope it enlightens young and old, and reminds everyone that slavery was a very evil part of our history.” — UVA Today
Members of the University of Virginia share their personal experiences and connections to the currently-under-construction Memorial to Enslaved Laborers that is taking shape on the campus. The university’s Board of Visitors has chosen an interdisciplinary team to bring the... View full entry