Image © John Benford/JohnBenford.com
African Burying Ground Memorial in Portsmouth
These life-sized bronze silhouettes, standing at the Court Street end of the Memorial, represent the collective community of greater Portsmouth, gathering resolved to acknowledge, protect, and pay homage to the souls whose remains chose to re-emerge in 2003 and make themselves known. Each figure bears a line from the poem by Memorial sculptor Jerome Meadows, inspired by this sacred place.
I stand for the Ancestors Here and Beyond
I stand for those who feel anger
I stand for those who were treated unjustly
I stand for those who were taken from their loved ones
I stand for those who suffered the middle passage
I stand for those who survived upon these shores
I stand for those who pay homage to this ground
I stand for those who find dignity in these bones
— Jerome Meadows, artist and sculptor
