Baskervill, the design firm, will be presenting its initial design concepts to the Memorialization Committee on Thursday, January 16th and I thought it would be helpful to reflect on the process. Baskervill’s goal has always been to create an artifact which would contribute something meaningful to the Wake Forest community and allow us to proactively remember and honor the enslaved. But the goal is also to construct a memorial which allows us to continue those hard and difficult conversations which we still must have as a campus community.

Throughout this process, there have been forums open to all and meetings with WF organizations, such as the Association of Wake Forest Black Alumni (AWFUBA), the Black Student Alliance, and the Slavery, Race, and Memory Project. Baskervill shared their preliminary report in October based on this feedback from multiple campus groups.

In April 2023, President Wente appointed the Campus Memorialization Steering Committee. In the fall of 2023, the Committee traveled to other universities to see examples of Baskervill’s work. We first traveled to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia where we viewed their Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.

Overseen by the President’s Commission on Slavery, the Memorial is close to the center of the UVa campus, the Lawn. It honors the lives of 4,000-5,000 enslaved laborers and includes memory marks for their names and a timeline.

There were two things about this memorial which struck me—first, was the wanting to touch the names, and the second was the use of water, both of which reminded me of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama and the newer National Memorial for Peace and Justice, also in Montgomery.

We then visited the Baskervill offices, based in Richmond where their motto is prominently displayed: Ask. Listen. Create. We toured Baskervill’s Trail of the Enslaved, which has numerous markers and sites around Richmond. Finally, we were on the road to our final stop, William & Mary’s Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved.

Hearth is located at the heart of the historic campus, right next to the original College (now Wren) Building, constructed in 1695-1699. I did not expect to like Hearth as much as UVa’s memorial, but I was truly mesmerized by its shape and size and took numerous photographs. It also included the names of the enslaved, based on the archival record attached on the side, again, so you could touch them. William & Mary has actively focused on developing the genealogies of the W&M enslaved as part of the Lemon Project. FYI, the Lemon Project web site includes a recent presentation by Renate Sanders, who speaks about conducting genealogy work for Wake Forest. She attempted to locate descendants of the sixteen enslaved who were sold for WF as part of the William Blount estate in 1860.

It has been a real honor to serve on this Committee and I am truly excited to see what Baskervill will propose for the Wake Forest community.