The sculpture is challenging and bold; the text, cringing. A formal dedication of the recently installed Slavery Memorial at Brown University will take place Saturday, with remarks by African-American sculptor Martin Puryear.
The installation consists of the memorial itself — a half-buried 4.5 ton cast-iron ball and chain — and, standing separately, a short inscribed pillar with explanatory text. And boy, the Public Art Committee could not have come up with a more anodyne and delicately worded text if they had actually given final cut to the university endowment committee. How many people were standing over how many shoulders during this process.
The passage starts, “This memorial recognizes Brown University’s connection to the trans-Atlantic slave trade . . .” without ever mentioning specifically what that very direct connection was. The authors employ only general terms like “slaving voyages” and “Rhode Islanders” without once mentioning “the Brown family” or “John Brown.” (I personally resent my own Rhode Island ancestors being lumped in with slave traders as if everybody was doing it.) An alien visiting earth for the first time would have no way of knowing that the “Brown” in the school name refers to a specific family of humans and not a color.
The text limps off, “Brown University was a beneficiary of this trade.” Mistakes were made.
Dedication, 3pm, Saturday, September 27, the Front Green near Manning Hall, 1 Prospect Street, (Bill van Siclen has story in today’s Sunday ProJo.)
