If everything goes as planned, come June 19, Oakland artist and See Black Womxn co-founder Dana King will unveil a 350-piece art installation in Golden Gate Park’s Music Concourse. Sponsored by the Museum of the African Diaspora and the San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce, Monumental Reckoning will surround the site of the toppled Francis Scott Key statue, and remain in place for two years.
King is currently working to complete the installation for its Juneteenth unveiling, fashioning four-foot-tall sculptures from steel and vinyl that represent the 350 African ancestors who were abducted and forcibly taken to the United States as the country’s first enslaved people.
“I really see that people acknowledge the need for a piece that speaks truth to the story of African descendants and brings their memories out into the public,” King says.
The Key statue was removed from the park after protesters pulled it down last Juneteenth, along with statues of Father Junípero Serra and Ulysses S. Grant. In addition to penning the poem that became the national anthem, Key was a slaveholder who opposed abolition.
Along with King’s installation, the phrase “Lift Every Voice” will shine on top of the Spreckels Temple of Music. The phrase comes from James Weldon Johnson’s poem Lift Every Voice and Sing, which has been known as “The Black National Anthem” for over a century.
