Monumental Reckoning

Three hundred fifty ancestors stand in a circle here, each represented by a silhouette cast from black steel. They surround the empty pedestal where a statue of Francis Scott Key once stood until protesters toppled it in twenty twenty. Artist Dana King created these figures to honor the lives and contributions of Black people in America, filling the void left by the former monument. The installation turns the space into a memorial for people whose names are mostly forgotten or never recorded.