By all accounts, the idea for a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment he commanded emerged soon after Shaw, two other officers, and 74 Black soldiers died during the initial attack on a fort that protected Charleston’s harbor.  After local opposition prevented a monument in Beaufort, South Carolina, it fell to Boston’s Joshua Bowen Smith (1813-79), an African American caterer to bring the monument to fruition.

This tour takes us to the home, studio, and gardens of the memorial’s sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish, NH. Participants will see the original model and hear the story of the creation of the first public monument to depict African Americans with dignity.   The program features new scholarship on how the monument was covered in the Black press of the time. Participants will also hear about the lives of the Black men who influenced this important work. This program brings together African American history, art, and poetry in a reflective prelude to Juneteenth

Presenter: Doctoral Candidate Dana Green, Public History and Art Fellow, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Park and Newton Rose, lead interpretive ranger at Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park.

Tour Bus will pick up participants at:

Portsmouth Park & Ride | NH Route 33, directly off I-95 Exit 3A, 185 Grafton Drive | 8:30am

Concord Park & Ride | 139 Iron Works Road Concord, immediately accessible from Interstate 89, exit 2 | 9:30am