Park in Raleigh to honor Black North Carolinians could begin construction this year
Update: Gov. Roy Cooper signed the bill on July 1.
A long-planned park in Raleigh to honor Black North Carolinians is headed toward reality. It could break ground later this year.
The North Carolina General Assembly voted around 1 a.m. on Friday to spend $1.5 million on the North Carolina Freedom Park, sending a funding bill to Gov. Roy Cooper to decide whether to sign it into law.
Freedom Park is to be built on Lane Street at Wilmington Street on a block between the Executive Mansion and the Legislative Building. It is two blocks from the state Capitol.
Freedom Park Board member Reginald Hildebrand said Thursday that when visitors come to Freedom Park, they will learn that “the people who tend to express the value of freedom most powerfully and convincingly — and with the greatest authority — are the people who were denied it most completely, the people who were slaves and their descendants.”
“Their words, and their witness, will serve as reminders for anyone who may take freedom for granted, or who may falter or become discouraged in its pursuit,” Hildebrand said in an email to The News & Observer on Thursday.
The park, which also has private funding, was designed by the late architect Phil Freelon and his colleagues at Perkins and Will. Freelon’s design was chosen for the park in 2016. Freelon also led the architectural design team for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
The center of the park will include a piece of art, the Beacon of Freedom.
Hildebrand said the inspiring work will “remind us that the flame of freedom that lit the soul of every slave, still burns in all of us. This park will remind us that the battle for freedom begins every morning.”
.jpg "200114_NCFP_From Southwest (1).jpg")
He said the park makes two important statements:
“It says that because of their experiences, African Americans have something to say to the world about the meaning and value of freedom, and of the ongoing struggle for freedom.”
“Freedom Park will also say that North Carolina has something important to say to the rest of the South, to the nation, and to the world, about what we believe it means to be a Southerner in the 21st century, about what we aspire to achieve and become, about the history that we now can affirm and embrace, and about what we want our legacy in public art and public spaces, to be,” Hildebrand said.
In 2019, the state budget included $2.5 million for a monument to African Americans on the state Capitol grounds and $1.5 million for Freedom Park. But the budget turned into a months-long stalemate between the Republican-led legislature and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, and didn’t become law.
The funding for both projects was stalled until last week, when the Senate passed funding for both as part of a surprise amendment on the floor. The $2.5 million for the African Americans monument also included signs for other monuments, including the Confederate ones, to add historical context. After protesters pulled down two Confederate soldier statues, Cooper ordered the remainder of the 75-foot-tall Confederate monument removed, a process that took days. Crews also removed two other Confederate monuments at Cooper’s order.
This week the House didn’t take up the $4 million funding of the monuments. Instead, Republicans criticized Cooper’s response to the protesters. However, Rep. Jason Saine, a Lincolnton Republican, said he still wanted to fund Freedom Park. Saine had previously sponsored a version of the funding in 2019.
The new bill, with funding of Freedom Park and other capital projects, emerged past midnight in the House, where it passed 101-4. It passed about a half-hour later in the Senate, 42-0.
“There has never been a time when there has been a greater need for this state, and the nation, to establish some common ground, to embrace our shared values and ideals, and confront and learn from a difficult history,” said Hildebrand, the NC Freedom Park board member.
.jpg "200114_NCFP_From Northwest (2).jpg")
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 1:49 AM with the headline "Park in Raleigh to honor Black North Carolinians could begin construction this year."
.jpg)