On the Prospect of Un-

The opposite of memory is not monument; however, a monument can be the physical manifestation of memory, an emotion, or an ideal. The term “monument” derives from the Latin verb monēre, which means to warn or recall. This etymology defines monuments as being fundamentally concerned with memory. Using affect, or the influence of emotion and sentimentality, monuments mobilize and engage memory in a way that brings the objects to life and into the present. Memory can be localized, focused on the preservation of an identity, ethnicity, religion, nation, and/or community. The structures represent the self-expression and personal feelings of individuals presented in a deceptively collective way in what is often public space. Subjective narratives of events, real or imagined, are positioned to stand as objective truth. I do not believe it is possible to produce a singular monument that can appease every single person within a society indefinitely. Very often, as power dynamics shift within a society, monuments become points of tension, and more importantly, the site of critical dialogue. So, the proposition of an “un-monument” raises the question What does it mean to “un-” a monument?

The prefix “un-” is generally used to describe the opposite of whatever word is placed behind it. For example, “unusual” means the opposite of usual and is used to describe something that is an uncommon occurrence, unexpected, or rare. One might say that it is unusual to tie the prefix “un-” to the word “monument” as it begs the existence of a word with an opposite meaning—an antonym. What is the opposite of a monument? Unlike the word unusual, which has a concrete definition, the antonym of monument is more abstract—it is to be forgotten. The opposite of a monument, which most often takes the form of a physical object, demarcated space, or an event, is loss of memory, the end of knowing, and/or apathy. Memory, knowledge, and apathy are all things one cannot physically touch, but things one can feel. What this indicates is that to “un-monument” may not necessarily mean to destroy or remove a physical object, but it instead might point to the possibility of collective forgetting.

The issue at the heart of contested US monuments lies in the conflation of memory, emotion, or ideal as uncontestable knowledge, and the stories that monuments tell as objective truth. Monuments are not history or even the direct result of historical events; they are often the materialization of power that have historically functioned much like propaganda or trophies for the powerful. Discourse often oscillates between the call to decenter the powerful and instead monumentalize the “worthy” and the call to remove the unworthy and replace them with the “good.” Who is worthy and who is good? Historical figures are made more complex, and therefore more human, by context. Celebrated patriots can also be understood as enslavers. Brilliant scientists can also be staunch believers in segregation or eugenics. As the public is more widely educated, historical knowledge becomes more widely known and undeniably more complex, revealing the flaws of our national heroes. The realities of existing within a settler colonial state and new world empire is that one man’s hero is another man’s villain, one citizen’s patriot is another man’s traitor.

The Un-monument initiative proposes to address this issue by commissioning a series of temporary monuments for the city of Boston. These monuments would begin to do the work of diversifying the stories told within Boston’s various public landscapes. By allowing local artists to speak through the sculptural language of monuments, it is intended that new and expansive histories of Boston be shared and more of the city’s diverse populations be represented through temporary artistic interventions. In the context of a proposed un-monument, “temporary” could easily be misunderstood to mean the opposite of “permanent.” These projects sanctioned by the city government will not be permanent city fixtures. However, this is the reality for all official monuments in our cities. All things are temporary and require resources for maintenance to extend longevity. Nothing lasts forever—not our monuments or even our beliefs. But questions linger: What will these various temporary monuments actually do for the people of Boston—not just for the historically marginalized and erased but for all people? What will happen when those interventions are gone and the stories they told once again lack public acknowledgment and representation?

Memory must supersede the object. The physical, material, and symbolic choices for these proposed temporary monuments will only matter as much as they are effective at imparting lasting knowledge. For these projects to do the work of “un-ing” anything, they must help us begin to challenge narrow historical narratives of Boston by expanding knowledge, recontextualizing histories, and even empowering us to unlearn the stories told by what stood on the landscape before. The physical objects may fade, and are intended to do so, but the new knowledge they impart and the memories they create have the potential to inspire radical societal change. In other words, the project’s actual success hinges on the education of the people of Boston. To un-monument is not to construct an object of any permanence; it is to inspire and encourage dialogue across various communities to make more visible the plurality of truth. As is written in stone on the Boylston Street side of the Central Library in Copley Square, “The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty.” Herein lies the democratization of public space.

I first encountered this inscription while rushing from the airport to attend a program on the desegregation of the public-school bus system in one of the library’s various ornate reading rooms. Established in 1848, the Boston Public Library is a pioneer of public library service in America. It was the first large free municipal library in the United States, the first public library to lend books, the first to have a branch library, and the first to have a children’s room. Boston Public Library holds more than twenty-three million items, estimated to be among the three largest collections in the country, including books, maps, manuscripts, letters, drawings, and other original works dating back as early as the tenth century. In one of the gathering rooms, I witnessed a dynamic cross-generational conversation on the history of segregation of Boston’s youth, the inequity of education, and the waves of resistance against it. I learned of the cross-institutional efforts to preserve and uplift this history, all with the unattributed inscription in my head: “The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty.” Inside the library, I saw people from every walk of life coexisting and using the very necessary resources of the public institution. This is where the “un-ing” will happen; this is where societal change will occur. Not in the erection of more monuments but in the free sharing of knowledge.

In the last few years, the City of Boston has done an incredible job of creating spaces for dialogue, particularly on Boston Common, where speakers have been brought together in front of The Embrace to present to the public new ways of seeing history, democracy, and all the ways in which we depend on each other. My questions are: How will these dialogues expand to reach more communities across Boston? How will these public conversations be archived and accessible in the future? How might these dialogues then begin to materialize into physical form, creating new monuments for the public landscape? Not being from Boston, nor from the eastern region of the United States, I had little previous relation to the city or its people. However, I was very versed in the local discourse on monuments. I had previously traveled to Boston to see the 1999 Harriet Tubman memorial, Step on Board, placed in the South End neighborhood of Boston, designed by the late sculptor Fern Cunningham (1949–2020). Transparently, I was disappointed. The ten-foot-tall bronze does not favor Tubman much, which is not so important as the symbolism contextualizing the historical figure. In addition to the bright and passive faces of the figures she leads through an alluded Underground Railroad, the Tubman figure is carrying a large Bible. The choice to place a Bible in her clutch instead of a gun felt intentionally neutral. As the first female figure memorialized in Boston, this depiction of Mother Moses tells a visual narrative that is digestible, but not what I needed at the time. I was a twenty-something-year-old Black man in the age of Black Lives Matter and ongoing violence from the police.

I traveled to Boston after the unveiling of Hank Willis Thomas’s 2022 monument The Embrace. I took an old friend with me who is not Black. I had read plenty of comments online and saw several videos criticizing the sculpture. One particular comment made by a young Black activist that I followed on social media stated, “Damn, they really hate us.” Those words were anchored in my mind as we walked through Boston. My friend had no context for the work. We stood at a distance and marveled at how beautiful it looked in the sun. I asked my friend what he saw and he smiled. He spoke of its beauty. I then informed him that it was a nod to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and, what I find more significant, his wife and the champion of his legacy, Coretta Scott King. He shrugged; he didn’t see it. I told him about some of the online comments. He frowned; he didn’t understand the anger and distress. “It’s still beautiful,” he said, and I agree. It is beautiful but it is illegible. It is a conceptually strong and thought-provoking work of art. Yet it is rendered illegible by the subtlety of the gesture in the context of a public landscape that has neglected the contributions of Black people. We are people actively being silenced and erased, contending with the disproportionate losses in our Black and brown communities to COVID-19. We are still asking to be seen.

During my most recent trip to Boston, a friend and I visited Meredith Bergmann’s Boston Women’s Memorial (2003) dedicated to three of the women who “shaped the city’s history”: Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley. We praised the scaffolding of the figurative sculptures with a deconstructed plinth. The figures of these women are presented resting comfortably among the fragmented pieces of a symbolic phallus. The statue of Wheatley is a direct nod to the prevailing frontispiece of the emancipated poet. I was able to look directly into the face of my literary ancestor—placed seated at ground level, her delicate hand poised with a quill, her pensive face relaxed and confident in the act of her God-given vocation. I am now a thirty-three-year-old writer struggling to navigate Trump’s culture war, an era of unabashed censorship from the federal government. The powers that be seek to silence and erase the very words that define who I am—Black, queer, a descendent of the enslaved—and what my people continue to experience in this country. Wheatley’s war is my war. It is my civic responsibility to write. To share what I know freely, despite the most unimaginable adversity. This is what I need to remember.

I learned very little about the people of Boston or its history from its monuments. I learned so much about Boston—its history, but also what people need from the present—from casual conversations. I played the role of a tourist during my last trip to the city. I wore an unassuming college hoodie and Nike shoes. I took the Freedom Trail walking tour and saw the grave of Frank, the “servant” of John Hancock. Curious eyes followed me as I poked around the Massachusetts Law Enforcement Memorial. I was interviewed by the Boston Globe while taking a tour of the African Meeting House. I toured the historic site the very day that the federal government announced defunding several cultural institutions across the country. I had a bánh mì from Bánh Mì Ba Lẹ & Bakery and had a book of poetry from justBook-ish signed by Porsha Olayiwola. I returned to the Boston Public Library two more times. The second visit was to have a comfortable space to write the notes for this article. The final visit was to take in Sargent’s murals before I left for the airport. Each time I entered the building, I took in the inscribed words “The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty.” When I was rushing out to catch my flight, moving quickly through the stacks, I was stopped by a librarian who kindly asked me, “What do you need?”