Local leaders, elected officials cut the ribbon on African American history monument
The Burg – August 26, 2020
For the past few years, members of the Commonwealth Monument Project have been planning and preparing the large bronze monument that now sits at 4 th and Walnut Streets.
“Today’s monument is a long-overdue tribute to the hardworking Pennsylvanians who lived and worked here in the 8th Ward,” PA Gov. Tom Wolf said.
The project’s Executive Director Lenwood Sloan saw the memorial as a way to pay tribute to Harrisburg’s Old 8th Ward, a historic primarily Black and immigrant neighborhood that was demolished to make room for the Capitol complex.
The monument is titled “A Gathering At The Crossroads: For Such A Time As This.” The base, or the “Orator’s Pedestal,” features 100 names of families from the Old 8th Ward. On top sits a map of the historic neighborhood’s streets. Two figures surround the pedestal, African-American abolitionist William Howard Day and suffragist Frances E.W. Harper.
