‘Blank Slate Monument’ placed at Edmund Pettus Bridge

SELMA, Ala. — The “Blank Slate: Hope For a New America” exhibit was placed at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge Monday. The monument, a Wi-Fi-enabled interactive work of art made collaboratively by renowned Ghanian sculptor Kwame Akoto-Bamfo and artist Brendan Burke, has been touring since 2021 as a bold counterpoint and challenge to the more than 2,000 Confederate symbols still on display in public spaces across the United States.

The placement of the “Blank Slate Monument” at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after a Confederate general and reputed Ku Klux Klan leader, will be the first time the monument stands alongside an active Confederate symbol on public land.

“Confederate monuments are intimidating,” Akoto-Bamfo said. “The Confederate generals the monuments celebrate look down on others. With the Blank Slate, the people stand atop each other to get higher together, to speak truth to power.”

The “Blank Slate Monument” is traveling on a flatbed truck to cities that are important to African American history, including those with a painful legacy of racial injustice and black perseverance such as Louisville, Ky.; Princeton, Ind.; Detroit, Mich.; Chicago; Pittsburgh; Philadelphia; New York City; Washington DC; Charlotte, N.C.; Atlanta; and most recently debuted in Alabama at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery and later at ArtsRevive in Selma.

After this event, the piece will be moved to ArtsRevive for a period of time and then prepared for private sale and moved to a permanent location.

Akoto-Bamfo’s mission behind the monument and tour is to use art to forward the racial and social justice movements, help inspire the healing of the nation, and elevate the voices of the silenced and oppressed by giving people a platform to let themselves be heard.

“The Blank Slate is my contribution to the pain of my black American siblings,” the artist said. “It’s not meant to relive the African American experience. I want to take on racism. It’s a problem for everyone with black skin. ‘The Blank Slate Monument’ is a call to action for me by using art to realize that the living conditions of blacks in America and in the world — racial justice and equality — is a human rights issue.”

Best known for his outdoor “Nkyinkyim Installation” sculpture dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Transatlantic slave trade displayed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., Akoto-Bamfo created the “Blank Slate Monument” to challenge the overwhelming prevalence of this legacy by raising awareness of the entrenched issues in each city and inspire a dialogue for a more hopeful future.

The statue is unapologetic in its representation of American history in the midst of today’s racial crisis and is a visual representation of the evolution of the African American experience and struggle — from the millions of enslaved men and women who were crucial to the foundation of the U.S., to the black soldiers who died fighting in the Civil War, to the more recent lives of those taken by law enforcement.

For more information, visit www.blankslatemonument.com.

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