In January, I got word from my Dad that I was getting a sorta Birthday present, a subscription to Smithsonian Magazine. The first issue I received was on the theme "America At War". There were several pieces that caught my interest; one on an interrogator with whom an encounter with a prisoner put him on a path towards peace, another on the forgotten fortifications of the "War on Terror".
The article that that I just read, on the memorials that have been dedicated to the dead of the current, and seemingly endless, "War on Terror", much is which is "blowback" from the Cold War, got me to thinking a bit. The author proposes an endless monument to eternal war. His wall would start with Crispus Attucks, the free African man killed during the Boston Massacre and include all Americans who have died in any sort of war, conflict or military action. His idea to have this monument go deeper and deeper into the earth makes me think of Dante's circles of hell or even
"Waist Deep in The Big Muddy".
But what monuments exist to activists. Yes there are places like the memorial at Kent State, etc. Why shouldn't there be one place to remember those activists who paid the ultimate price; Slaves who led rebellions, organized workers shot on the orders of a boss, civil rights workers, both of color and their white allies, all the way to folks like Heather Heyer.
The first question is where to build it. Berkeley, California seems a logical location. That is a city with a known counterculture representation, but New York City, Boston, Portland or Seattle could also be in the mix.
As for a design, perhaps something like the Flight 93 Memorial. Panels not going into the ground like the "eternal war" memorial, but perhaps towards a sculpture of a dove, or of one person offering a hand to another. A memorial to the Holocaust in Harrisburg, PA poses a possibility with a set of panels surrounding a sculpture:
A country built on a colossal act of dissent, and with a history of rights needing to be won with blood may deserve a monument to those who gave their lives so that others could have justice. Especially now, as we see racism and other evils raising their ugly heads once more.
