The Fort Monroe Authority is in the mix for a $6 million infusion to construct the African Landing Memorial, which will commemorate first Africans who arrived in the Virginia colonies in 1619.
The funding is among several items in a $3.1 billion budget bill Democratic state leaders introduced ahead of the General Assembly’s special session that started Monday. Gov. Ralph Northam called the session to determine how to use $4.3 billion disbursement in federal pandemic relief.
Fort Monroe’s proposed allocation – listed in the budget bill under tourism – would cover site work for the overall project, design, construction and installation, executive director Glenn Oder said in an email. The memorial is to tell a more accurate history and create a more inclusive historical space at Fort Monroe, he added.
It features a multi-element design on a 30-foot-long double-sided relief sculpted wall with multiple panels. They will tell the story and history of the first Africans, from their life in Angola, their assault and capture, journey during the Middle Passage, landing at Old Point Comfort (present day Fort Monroe) and subsequent trade as property into slavery.
Other elements will be a bronze sculpture depicting Antoney and Isabella, a couple documented among te first Africans, holding their baby, William Tucker. The infant was recorded as the first African birth in the Virginia colonies in 1624. A third element is an arc sculpture with a flame symbolizing hope.
If approved the funding will give the green light toward beginning the tactical work of landscaping the surrounding memorial park and plaza, parking improvement along Fenwick Road, realignment of underground utilities, adding structural supports for the three sculptures. The Board of Trustees OK’d the concept design by artist Brian R. Owens in February.
“The memorial … will be a site of remembrance not only for our state and nation but for the world, attesting to the courage and determination of generations of people to make lives for themselves despite obstacles of enslavement and injustice,” board member and historian Edward Ayers, said in an email.
The overall concept design is still sketches on paper, but Owens, commissioned in 2019 to create the memorial, is eager to get to the next phase of the project, which is to create a precise scale model. That includes full details of what the sculptures will look like, down to every article of clothing and facial expression. Owens is waiting to hammer out final contract details with the authority before he can get started on any next steps. The Detroit native has a studio in Florida and plans to rent a larger space and crew to help.
“If I did it myself, I could easily spend the rest of my life and may not even finish,” he said.
Hampton nonprofit Project 1619 Inc. originally had the idea to create a memorial on Fenwick Road near the state marker that recognizes their arrival. Early on, the project received Northam’s support with $500,000 budget back in 2018. The authority also received a $50,000 grant from the National Trust through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund to use toward this project.
The project’s cost could range up to $5 million, but the dollar figure is really fluid at this point, Owens said, considering the cost of the sculpture itself, its delivery, which all “depends on what I design.”
Lisa Vernon Sparks, 757-247-4832, lvernonsparks@dailypress.com
