American National Slavery Memorial DeGraft-Hanson

American National Slavery Memorial

A Design to Commemorate the former enslaved of the United States of America

A Proposal

By Kwesi J. DeGraft-Hanson, M.L.A., Ph.D.

4773 Pebble Trace

Buford, Georgia 30518
kwesid@gmail.com
678-524-7284(c)

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American National Slavery Memorial DeGraft-Hanson

American National Slavery Memorial

A Design to Commemorate the former enslaved of the United States of America

A Proposal

By Kwesi J. DeGraft-Hanson, M.L.A., Ph.D.

4773 Pebble Trace

Buford, Georgia 30518
kwesid@gmail.com
678-524-7284(c)

Essence
An acknowledgement of the atrocities of enslavement, and a recognition that a
fitting memorial to honor those who were enslaved in these United States of
America is not only long overdue, but of much benefit to all who live in the
legacies of this national holocaust; an appreciation that to commemorate is to
honor the seemingly denigrated, and importantly, to assuage some of the wounds
of the past, and to foster reconciliation and peace among descendants of the
enslavers, the enslaved, the enablers, and those who enjoy the fruits of the labors
of the formerly enslaved persons—in essence, all of us living in the United States
of America today.

Possible Locations

 Savannah, Georgia

 Charleston, SC

 Butler Island, Georgia

 Atlanta, Georgia

 Washington, D.C

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Figure 1. Proposed Slavery Memorial Wall of Names; half-acre site.

General Memorial Features (see figures 1 & 2)

• 14’ tall Smoke-Grey Glass Walls; Reflective & Transparent; Reflection Pools
• Scrolling Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Names of former enslaved Africans and
Americans
• Design inspiration is from slave names, and the history, spatial patterns &
rhythms in the cultural-ecological landscapes, of West and Central Africa, and the
Southern USA.
• Jagged ends of memorial walls symbolize breaches in African and African
American cultural life, but also suggest the potential coming together, and
restoration, of same.
• Water atop wall; also seeps down through the walls, like soft sheeting rain.
• 7 Palm trees, clusters, accompany each memorial wall.
• 7’ diameter Tabby or Steel columns, share histories of courageous individuals
who helped abolish the slave trade and slavery (e.g. Olaudah Equiano, William
Wilberforce, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Frances Anne Kemble.)

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Brief History/Background

Historians assert that about 400,000 Africans were brought to the North American
mainland as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade era, from about 1619 through to about
1866.1 At the time of the American Civil War, the direct descendants of these enslaved Africans
numbered about 4,000,000 enslaved African Americans, and who were emancipated in 1863-5.
Today, African Americans, many who are descendants of these former enslaved, number about
39 million, and make up approximately 12 to 13 percent of the American populace. To date,
there is no major memorial in the United States of America dedicated in honor of the men,
women, boys, and girls who were bought and brought to the colonies that became the United
States of America. There is certainly nothing on the scale of the Vietnam War memorial, the
World War memorials, or the Holocaust memorials. That is a travesty that needs to be rectified.

A memorial acknowledges the wrongs against, and sufferings of, those who were
enslaved; and it allows all of us living with the legacies of slavery—descendants of slave-
holders, slave-traders, and enslaved, alike—to come to terms with it, and importantly, to heal
from it and move forward in unity. Any travesty unacknowledged allows guilt, anxiety, distrust,
fear, bitterness, and anger to foster in the community where the event happened. On the contrary,
commemorating the event becomes a watershed place and moment that allows a collective
moving forward. Below is a conceptual memorial designed in honor of the millions of men,
women, and children who were enslaved in the colonies and states that became the United States
of America. It evokes and commemorates all the generations of enslaved—from the first bound
African whose foot touched American soil, to the youngest person set free by the emancipation
proclamation.

A Design to Commemorate the Enslaved

To commemorate the former enslaved, it is proposed that a fitting national memorial be

designated in their honor. A design concept is shared here. Design inspiration came from
enslaved persons’ names in various slave registers extant in slaveholder family papers in

1
David Eltis et al., Voyages: the trans-Atlantic slave trade database.
http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces, 2013.

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archives and historical societies throughout the United States; from spatial patterns and rhythms
in the cultural and ecological landscapes of West Africa, and in the American South where slaves
toiled in tobacco, rice and cotton plantations; and from the histories of these landscapes of
slavery.
Figure 1 (above) is a proposed memorial wall showing a half-acre (day’s task)—the area
delimited—within four seven-foot diameter tabby or steel columns, which represent the mature
cypress trees the enslaved had to fell before taming typical mangrove-swamplands on the
Georgia and South Carolina low country region, to facilitate their planting rice.2 The columns,
symbolizing the strong physical, emotional, spiritual and mental constitution of the former
enslaved persons, would feature images and narratives of notable enslaved persons, like
Denmark Vesey, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman; and the men and women whose efforts
brought about the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, including William Wilberforce,
Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Frances Anne Kemble.3

The memorial would feature digitized enslaved person names inscribed in smoke-gray
glass walls, with the names streaming past visitors in red liquid crystal display (LCD) inside the
walls. Memorial walls would be reflective and translucent, allowing visitors to see themselves,
and through the walls to the symbolic “other side.” The walls would appear to have been broken
in two (with jagged ends symbolizing how the slave trade and slavery disrupted African
communities, and repeatedly dislocated African American families). The fourteen-foot high
memorial wall’s angled ends (wedges) will fit into each other when placed end to end (full
circle), symbolizing the eventual restoration of individuals, families, communities and cultures

2
Tabby is a colonial and antebellum building construction material that consisted of equal parts (by weight) of
oyster shells, lime created by burning oyster shells, sand, and water. The mixture of the materials became a slurry
that was poured between wooden boards, and allowed to set and harden as wall segments. Successive segments were
built atop existing ones till the desired wall heights were achieved. Tabby was built by enslaved persons using
American Indian shell middens (refuse and or ceremonial heaps), and can be found along the north American
Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Florida.
3
Wilberforce was one of the leading parliamentary figures whose efforts in the late eighteenth century led to the
British abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Frances Kemble (1809-1893) was an English actress whose abolitionist
tendencies put her at odds with her American slaveholder husband, Pierce Mease Butler (1810-1867). Her book,
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839, edited, with an introduction by John A. Scott (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), originally published in 1863, purportedly helped turn British sentiment (and financial
and military assistance) away from the confederate south, and may have influenced the outcome of the American
Civil War.

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damaged by slavery.

The curving walls symbolize waves, wind-loaded sails, dispersal, indomitable spirits and
ultimately, freedom. Each wall will have seven memorial palm trees planted in their vicinity. The
commemorative walls would have water springing from their top center, flowing in opposite
directions down the jagged ends, into reflective pools of water. Shallow, darkened, circular (or
quadrilateral) water pools at each end of the memorial wall allow contemplation and reflection,
suggesting refreshing, regeneration, and healing. The water would also seep (weep) down
through the wall, like soft, sheeting rain; and also flow on the outside of the walls, down onto
porous beds of smooth, black, lava rocks. The water circulating in these memorial fountain walls
should initially be a collection of waters from all the rivers on the Atlantic and the Gulf Coasts of
the USA, and water from the Atlantic Ocean. These waters were instrumental in facilitating the
slave trade and slavery, and, as well, sustained enslaved persons in their daily living, or in their
escapes from enslavement. Ideally, the memorial should consist of seven curved walls (represent
African personal day names—based on days of the week—many which are still represented on
various extant enslaved persons’ lists, and the Biblical number of completion). A grid of water
rills that spatially demarcate the “tasks” of “full-hand” enslaved persons—a half-acre—would
provide the setting for each wall.

The names on the walls would include all enslaved persons’ names in all plantation
documents and lists available in the United States. To acquire these name lists, all personal and
family papers from all the former plantations nationwide, at all state archives and historical
societies, will be accessed, and the lists digitized into a major, national databank that will be the
basis for the electronic enslaved person names that will feature on the memorial walls. Names
appearing multiple times on slave lists will only be listed once on the memorial; as a symbolic
roll call, all formerly enslaved persons with the same name will be thus summoned, engaged, and
acknowledged.

Figure 2 (below) shows a segment of the full memorial site, including four walls,
showing paved areas alternating with lawn areas around each wall, reflecting pools, connecting
water rills, tabby or steel columns, tree plantings, and general pedestrian circulation around the

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memorial walls. Each water-segmented area represents the typical half-acre “task” area that “full
hands,” males and females between the ages of mid-teens and the mid-forties or fifties, if they
were healthy, were required to work on a daily basis.

It is preferable that this memorial be built in the American South because place matters –
the majority of those enslaved in this country, and their descendants, lived in the American
South. The memorial would make a difference to local communities in the south, especially, as
well as to the nation and world. The perception and response of the local, national and
international communities who will visit and appreciate this memorial can only be anticipated.
However, it is acknowledged that because slavery was a national institution—northerners were
ship-builders and insurers of slaving voyages after slavery was abolished in the north, and
southerners were planters and slaveholders until the Civil War brought the emancipation of the
enslaved,—that Washington D.C. is also an appropriate location for this national memorial.
Ultimately, what matters most is not that one site is more fitting than another, but that the
memorial be built, and any site in these United States of America will be an apt locus.

It is worth reiterating that any tragedy not commemorated fosters resentment, guilt, fear,
anger and anxiety; tragedies and travesties need resolution; the lands under which atrocities
occur need purging, “washing” and regeneration; and the guilt and anger in people needs
abatement and purging as well. None other than the renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud has
stated that unresolved angers and frustrations fester, and reproduce physical ailments in the
human body. This malaise and or its manifestations can be easily extrapolated to a national body,
with its multiplied ramifications. Heeding, and attending to, these ailments in the body politic of
this nation will bring about healing, restoration, and rejuvenation—in the nation! A memorial
such as is here proposed for these United States of America is long overdue, but timely. It is
important for the truly united future of its citizens and visitors alike. May God bless these United
States of America. Thank you.

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Figure 2. Proposed Slavery Memorial Walls of Names, two-acre site.

Brief about the author and proponent of this memorial idea

Kwesi J. DeGraft-Hanson graduated in May 2013 with a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary

Studies from the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. His research
explores intersections of African American history, culture, and literature in colonial and
antebellum slavery in the American South. His focus is on what he terms "Hidden Landscapes of
Slavery,"—places and spaces, like some former plantations and slave auction sites in the
American South, that are unmarked and without commemoration. He researches historical and
contemporary maps and texts for spatial, architectural and cultural information to facilitate
remapping and re-imaging said landscapes; to recreate these as virtual sites that allow
commemorative attention towards the former enslaved persons who inhabited these places. His
most recent publication, “Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course

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and 1859 Slave Sale,” was published in Southern Spaces, an online Interdisciplinary Journal
about regions, places and cultures of the U.S. South.4

DeGraft-Hanson is also a landscape architect, and is registered and licensed to practice in

Georgia and Louisiana. He obtained his Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the
University of Georgia in 1990. He has practiced landscape architecture in South Carolina and
Georgia, and internationally in Ghana, West Africa. He is principal of Eden Gardens
International, which he formed in 1990. Prior to that, Kwesi worked for the City of Charleston,
SC as a Landscape Architect, and for LS3P Architects, and Architectural Illustrations Associates,
all in Charleston, and garnered tremendous design and construction experience in both the public
and private sector. Kwesi has designed and managed construction of a wide range of projects,
from intricate, high-end residential designs, to University campus land planning, to design and
Construction administration for three 1996 Centennial Olympic Games venues. Kwesi was
Project Landscape Designer for the 1996 Olympic Cycling & Archery venue at Stone Mountain
Park, Georgia, while a planner with Bishop Planning Consultants, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. DeGraft-
Hanson has over 25 years of experience in the field of Landscape Architecture, including design,
Project Management and Contract Administration. He became a Registered Landscape Architect
in 2000.

An educator as well, DeGraft-Hanson has taught landscape architecture, land planning

and horticulture courses in South Carolina and Georgia Colleges; notably, at the University of
Georgia, from 1996 through 2005. In 2002, while on a leave of absence from UGA, DeGraft-
Hanson taught, for a semester, at the Department of Architecture at the University of Science and
Technology, Ghana. His teaching and professional practice has focused on Site Design and
Planning, Landscape Planting Design, Irrigation Design, Site Grading and Drainage Design,
Landscape Construction, Fountain Design and Engineering, and Community Design. He is a

4
Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson, “Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah's Ten Broeck Race Course and 1859 Slave
Sale,” Southern Spaces, February 18, 2010, http://www.southernspaces.org/2010/unearthing-weeping-time-
savannahs-ten-broeck-race-course-and-1859-slave-sale.

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seasoned and skilled designer who is adept at using computer-aided design (CAD) just as he is
comfortable creating plans and three-dimensional graphics using hand drawing techniques.

From his upbringing and experiences in his homeland of Ghana; his academic and
professional practice; and personal experiences in the United States, including being married to
an African American, and especially from extensive travel in what he terms “Hidden Landscapes
of Slavery” in the American South, he realized the paucity of commemoration to those who had
been enslaved in the United States of America, despite the atrociousness of slavery. He was
surprised to discover that notwithstanding the fact that the former enslaved are largely
responsible for the wealth and stature of the US, that, over one hundred and fifty years post
slavery, still—at the time of this writing, there is as yet no national memorial to commemorate
these former enslaved. DeGraft-Hanson was inspired to design, and is now advocating for, a
proper memorial to commemorate the former enslaved of America. His design is featured in this
presentation.

Thank you for your time, and consideration.

References

DeGraft-Hanson, Kwesi. “Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah's Ten Broeck Race Course
and 1859 Slave Sale.” Southern Spaces, February 18, 2010,
http://www.southernspaces.org/2010/unearthing-weeping-time-savannahs-ten-broeck-
race-course-and-1859-slave-sale.

Kemble, Frances Anne. Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839, edited

with an introduction by John A. Scott. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.

Voyages, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. 2008.

http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/database/search.faces

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