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The Office of Arts and Culture’s Public Art Program is developing a public art project that will honor the victims of racial violence lynched in Dallas County.
The location for the artwork, approved by the Park Board, will be Martyrs Park, 379 Commerce Street.
As part of the preliminary scope of the project, the artwork must:
- Memorialize the victims of lynching in Dallas County.
- Be durable and require little or no maintenance
- Be highly visible in the landscape
- Be free of safety hazards
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[panel title=”Project Timeline” background_color=”#32a1f0″ text_color=”#ffffff”]
December 2019
Public Meetings for Community Input
January 2020
Call for Artists Opens & Artist Selection
February 2020
Open Call for Artists: CLOSED
Review and Approval by Public Art Committee, Arts and Culture Advisory Commission and Park Board
April 2020
City Council Approval
September 2021
Estimated completion
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PAST MEETINGS AND CONTENT:
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Dallas Heritage Village- Browder Springs Hall
1515 S Harwood St
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[toggle title=”December 17 2019″]
Latino Cultural Center
2600 Live Oak Street
Meeting VIDEO: Coming soon
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[toggle title=”January 4 2020″]
Briefing for Artists interested in the Project
South Dallas Cultural Center
3400 Fitzhugh Ave.
Meeting Presentation: Includes Guidelines for interested artists such as Selection Process and Eligibility!
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[toggle title=”January 11 2020″]
South Dallas Cultural Center
3400 Fitzhugh Ave.
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THE EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE:
[toggle title=”Remembering Black Dallas”] RBD is hosting community conversations in partnership with the Office of Arts and Culture in support of the community guidelines for the Equal Justice Initiative. Affiliated with the Equal Justice Initiative, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice documents the most active era of racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950 and has memorial markers for each county in the US where lynchings occurred in this time period. The Dallas County marker has two names. We wish to apply to EJI for an historical marker recognizing the two victims of lynching in Dallas county and bring the marker to Dallas.
RBDallas, Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit organization that preserves and promotes, the African American life, history, artifacts, and culture of Dallas and its surrounding cities. Genealogist. Historical Preservation. Educational Presentations.
Remembering Black Dallas Website
The Equal Justice Initiative Website
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PROJECT LOCATION:
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Photo: Aerial View of Martyrs Park.
379 Commerce Street, Dallas TX 75202
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[toggle title=”Inside the Park”]
Photo: Reunion Tower is seen through the trees of Martyrs Park. Traffic is heading west out of Downtown.
157 years ago, this area (currently next to Dallas’s Triple Underpass) was the Trinity River bottoms.
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Photo: view of the park form Commerce looking northeast.
On October 24, 1992, the name of this area was change from “Dealey Annex” to “Martyrs Park”.
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PUBLISHED COMMENTS:
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Message: Great Idea, thank you for Honoring my Slain Ancestors. I will be there the day this Memorial is Finished.
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Message: This should include everyone, not just black slaves. Mexicans were also lynched and suffered many injustices but this is never talked about. I’m sure there are others who should be remembered and this should serve to educate the masses about all injustices.
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Message: This is the input I have given to the Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs for the Memorial for Racial Violence in Martyrs Park.
Until an accurate history can be memorialized and publicly admitted, we will have no real progress in race relations. To have an accurate memorial to racial violence in Dallas is a first step.
The memorial must be designed to be open to corrections and expansions as more facts are documented and added to the historical record. But first we need a place to start.
The Martyrs Park Memorial location has wonderful potential due to the proximity to the JFK Assassination site and the actions of President Kennedy to continue the work toward the Civil Rights Act in his June 1963 radio address, 5 months before his death in Dallas. The entry to the walkway to Martyrs Park should have a Historical Marker to this June event placed to draw tourists from the Kennedy Assassination Site to a Black History timeline going back in history from 1963 to the most well documented deaths, the 1853 hanging of Jane Elkins and the triple hangings, near the location of Martyrs Park, in 1860. (One vision of this memorial is in Bill Betzen’s Blog in October of 2017 under the title of “Dallas Martyrs Park and John F. Kennedy”)
Between 1853 and June of 1963 Black History called out for the values reflected in the June radio address by President Kennedy. Major parts of that history from 1963 back to 1853 can be illustrated along the walls in the walkway going from the Grassy Knoll near the Assassination Site to the location of Martyrs Park. Some of the potential events of this Black History Timeline were documented in an exhibit in the Shotgun House at Dallas Heritage Village in 2017. (Photos of that exhibit can be seen in Bill Betzen’s Blog for November of 2017 under the title of “Dallas Black History Timeline”)
These components and this history could draw additional hundreds, even thousands, to visit Dallas and Martyr’s Park daily.
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QUESTIONS/PREGUNTAS?
