Black Artist Unveils Sculpture at Site of Princeton University Slave Auction
As the country reckons with its history of racial injustice, the question remains of what to do with the monuments, statues and flags that commemorate elements of the nation's ugly past. Many politicians and ordinary citizens are calling for Confederate monuments to come down. Others still have pledged that they will do anything to ensure these monuments stay standing. And still others have taken matters into their own hands, defacing, and even destroying, monuments they feel are racist.
As the debate rages about statues coming down, Princeton University has decided to put a new monument up, The Atlantic reports. As part of a campus-wide initiative confronting its past ties to slavery, the university unveiled a sculpture called Impressions of Liberty by the African American artist Titus Kaphar. As part of a larger public-art project beginning this fall, Kaphar's art concentrates on the way history is remembered, highlighting the moments and figures who are “habitually … written out of grand historical narratives,” according to Art in America.