The Monumental Project
Welcome to The Monumental Project: How Historic Sites and Monuments of Yesterday Affect Us Today. As the official companion podcast of the Monuments Toolkit program, we will be diving deep into the pieces of American history found across the nation, and how the stories they carry impact the modern day American citizen. The goal of this podcast and the program at large, is to address the question “how do we address monuments of oppression?” What are our options for dealing with painful pieces of our past? How can we learn, heal, and move forward? By the end of this season we’ll have a better understanding.
The Monumental Project
The Richmond Episode
While there are countless examples of controversial monuments around the country, very few have garnered the attention that Richmond has created with Monument Avenue, a fourteen-block-long, tree-lined residential boulevard cutting across central Richmond
The reason for its controversy? Well for over 100 years, the street was riddled with Confederate monuments. Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Matthew Fontaine, J.E.B Stuart and of course Robert E Lee would stand tall, looking down on the citizens of Richmond with no realistic removal plan in site.
All that drastically changed when George Floyd and Breonna Taylor passed away. After days of heated protests, By July of 2020 many of the monuments were torn down and removed. To many this seems like an open-and-shut case of activism doing its part, but a deeper look reveals more to the story than people may think.
Today The Monumental Project sits down with Richmond historian Lexi Cleveland, photojournalist Regina Boone, and Richmond-based entrepreneur Devon Henry on their experiences during the downfall of Monument Avenue.
This is the Richmond Story. This is The Monumental Project.